Alegria – happiness

Today me and my husband Per bought The House. The house on a mountain slope at the Mediterranean that I’ve always been dreaming of – with a lush garden with olive and orange trees where you don’t have to cover roses and dig up perennials for winter. Even better, this house is a building project and at least twice as big as the house of my dreams. It will take lot of time and effort but the house will truly be “ours”.

We signed the purchase contract already for some months ago but now everything has become real. We also became aware of the Spanish way of dealing with paperwork; the final contract was signed in the office of Notario Salvador Fernandes. To be a Notario in Spain means that your future is secured – every single deal and contract needs to be approved by a notario to be legal… The final purchase process took what felt like ages – so many papers to sign and circumstances, risks and possibilites explained to us  – at some point I counted nine persons sitting around the table… The buyers (us), the seller (with a power of attorney from his wife that was missing from start but could luckily be found after half an hour), legal representatives, bankers, personal advisors etc. We could not do anything else than let the bureaucracy take its time. Everything was in Spanish.

We got the content of the purchase contract transleted to us. The traditional name of the house, we were told, apart from the street address, is Alegria. Hearing that I almost got tears in my eyes! Alegria – meaning “happiness, joy, playfulness, fun” – is a song by Cirque du Soleil that our girls Clara and Elsa love since old times when they were small. This song brings back wonderful memories from our trips around the world. Among ohter places we visited Las Vegas where the girls became fascinated by Cirque du Soleil shows and ever since then the mystique of this beautiful song – Alegria – follows us. This must be a sign from above!

With a wonderful tickling feeling I go to sleep. I already look forward to tomorrow! We will move to a nice house close enough to keep an eye on the building process that is already going on! Below some photos of our house – Alegria – as it looks like now…