End of the Year Fun (part 1)

Early in November, my cousins Michelle and Don came through Barcelona after doing a cycling tour of Mallorca. We met up with them for dinner and took them to our favorite tapas place, Fragments. It was fun to see them after so many years! (Michelle's dad is my mom's first cousin. She lived with us for a while when I was in high school.) They had friends along who are considering moving to Spain, so we gave them some helpful tips. We also learned (the hard way) that there are some Metro stops that only reach trains going one direction - you have to go back up to street level and find a different entrance to go the other way. And your metro card won't work if you try to do both entries in quick succession. Oops.

Then I went off to the States for 10 days for SC25 in St. Louis. It was a crazy conference week that was a little stressful, but a lot fun. I did get to go for a 5K walk on a beautiful sunny Saturday morning, right under the Gateway Arch, and had dinner with family friends that I hadn't seen in years. Betty and I are birthday buddies (see pic), but I don't think I had seen her since I was in London ~10 years ago? Maybe more? We had a lovely dinner, and got ice cream at Clementine's (which of us was naughty and which was nice?). And then I got buried in the conference, as usual. John decided not to go with me - first time he's missed an SC conference in 20-ish years, but it just wasn't in the cards for him this year. Many people missed him. It was great to see all of the TACC people, and check out their newly redesigned booth!

 

I made it home from St. Louis on Sunday morning, the week before Thanksgiving. Remember when I said there's always some kind of festival in town? There was an Olive Oil market in Plaza Catalunya that weekend - the whole plaza was filled with stands for local olive oil companies, selling wares made from a particular local varietal of olive - the arbequina. There was also a food stand, a wine bar, and a teaching tent. We tasted some wine and sweets, and bought a couple of nice bottles of oil from a stall that took the time to teach us what the fuss was all about. :) 

Since we had to work on the Thursday of Thanksgiving (and Friday, for that matter), we bought turkey cutlets and sweet potatoes, and I cooked a small feast on Saturday. It was delicious, and perfect for just us. Maybe next year I'll do a bigger thing and invite some people over. There's an "All-American" store here that was offering pre-cooked turkeys with all the fixin's for 100 Euros - that was just too much! 

At that point, we realized that we had lots of vacation days to use up in 2025, and not a lot of time left to do it. (We're not used to this "use it or lose it" system!) Conveniently, when our friends were visiting from the UK at the end of October, they invited us to come up to York to spend Xmas with them. The price of plane tickets to cross the pond was ridiculous, so we figured, why not? We decided to take the train up for Christmas week (and John suggested a brief stop in Paris), and then hop over to Dublin for the second week.

The following week, our friend Brian came to town for a meeting, with a few days tacked on for vacation, so we went to dinner with him and his wife. This time we tried a totally new place, L'Enric, which we also really liked.  It was a slightly longer walk than we usually do, but worth it. We sat in the back of the restaurant, pretty much by ourselves, and had some really tasty tapas and desserts. 

Then, Libby and John came back through town after their tour of the Balkans. She and I went to a Christmas market at Estacio Nord and got some cute earrings and gifts. For dinner, we went to "Cheese's Art Fromatgeria" -- me, the lactose-intolerant one! It's a fondue and "cook your meat at the table" place we'd found in October with our friends from York. You choose steak or chicken, and the amount (in grams) and they bring a hot stone and sauces. See photo -> We also had a cheese plate (well, mostly John and Libby ate that!) And of course ice cream for dessert at DeLaCrem. One extra good thing about living in Barcelona - everyone wants to come visit! (If this keeps up, I'll have to get some more lactaid pills...) 

The next weekend, BSC's "meet your co-workers" group organized an outing to get a guided tour (in English) of the Picasso Museum. We met up with about a dozen other BSC folks from all over the world, and learned about the man and his art. John and I had been to the museum before (with the family in 2016), but I learned a lot from the guide. I was really struck by his pointillist painting of a woman with a mantilla. I never think of Picasso as a 'dots' painter. 

On the way home, we found one of the yarn shops that's been on my list since we arrived... Now I have to come up with a project so I can go back and go shopping! Then we wandered through the Mercat de Santa Caterina, and I bought some langostines to make for dinner. Never made them before, but they were delicious! Garlic, butter, and white wine make everything yummy.  

There were Christmas markets popping up all over town, so I picked one to go see. Unfortunately, I picked the one that was down by the waterfront, and it was a cold and drizzly day (brr! see pic), but we had fun wandering and taking pictures, and we got our first churros since we've been here -- how did it take this long? We chatted with the couple in the food cart, and then proceeded to get nutella all over ourselves. (Worth it!)  The 'market' was only about a dozen stalls, with jewelry, clothing, cards, and toys. Nothing we felt we needed, but the churros warmed us up for the trip home. 

John took an extra week off, so his vacation started on the 12th. I worked until the 19th. On the 17th we had our Education team holiday outing, with a slightly different version of 'Secret Santa' -- instead of picking a name and getting a gift for that person, we each wrapped a gift that would be good for anyone in the group. I felt the need to crochet something, so I got some yarn and made a quick scarf out of chenille yarn. All of the gifts go in a black bag, and we all open them at the same time, and then try to guess who contributed the gift. I got a fluffy hot water bottle, which wasn't quite my style, but the person who gifted it actually wanted it, so I traded for some lovely French spices. My scarf ended up going to my boss, and she loved it. 

 
Here we are before the gift exchange started - I'm so lucky to work with this amazing group of women! 

 

That brings us to our holiday break (Paris-York-Dublin) - so that'll be another post!