2008 - Year-in-Review

This has definitely been a fun and adventurous year. So many things have happened that I need to write them out in order to remember them. We started out the year having already seen around 30 different places, still not knowing if we were going to rent a place or buy one. I felt so much pressure to have a location in order to obtain our residency card. So I went out and found a nice little room to make into an office to have an address to be able to fill out my papers to get my residency so I didn't have to take my family on a 5-hour drive to Spain for a weekend just to get out of the country to enter back in (that's a long sentence for ya!)

Only 3 weeks later, I took a local friend with me to look at some places. The next morning he ventured out on his own and had found the ideal place for us before noon. In some ways, that still is very sickening. Me = 6 months of seeing 40 places. Him = 2 hours of seeing 3 places. We now have a location for the biz that we never imagined having, plus being locked into a year long contract on another office. Covering your bases.

We then spent the next couple of months renovating the place (new tile in the kitchens, toilets and showers in each bathroom, heavy duty glass roof to replace the dark blue plastic covering and some touch-up paint.) All in all, it was a very easy renovating session, being highlighted by lowering a bathroom 6 inches to make the toilet fit a little better.

The beginning of May saw our very first cooking class with 5 guinea pigs (3 of whom were my sisters.) The next class was a month later with 3 more "testers" (1 of those being my wife.) Then I felt like we were ready to open the doors to some real customers.

We really aren't sure how we got off to such a great start considering our website wasn't operational until October. But somehow we managed to coax a good number of people to our school and log 20 classes in our first 6 months. Still pretty shocked about that. At the same time, we worked hard on all of our decor and ammenities and have gotten our Guest House fully functional (all that remains is authorization). Can't wait to start advertising that for our guests.

As you can read below, we have had some great clients learn about the culture and cuisine of our country. This past month, we welcomed folks from the US Embassy in Morocco and the Congo. It's always great getting your foot in various doors.

Day 2 of 2009 has already seen our first class and the arrival of a shipment of cookbooks. The calendar is starting to fill up for the cooking classes as well as for the Guest House. I can't remember the last time I entered into a new year with as much excitement and expectation as I am this year.