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The last part of our holiday adventure involved a short flight (at a ridiculously early hour) from Leeds to Dublin. The Leeds airport is tiny but was amazingly busy for the Saturday after Christmas. We were on a prop plane, so we had a chilly walk out on to the tarmac. BRRR! (see pic below) When we got into town, we were given keys to a cute little apartment I found on Vrbo that was actually attached to the Qualtrics offices in Dublin. Six apartments facing a central (open) patio... when you get off the elevator, the offices are to the left and the flats are to the right. We figured maybe they have those flats available for their executives? Not that week - it was mostly New Years' vacationers like us.  It was cold and gray most of the week. We found the basement supermarket in the Dunne's department store across the street (like Corte Ingles) and picked up coffee, breakfast items, hot cocoa (Cadbury's, of course), and some snacks. As is our tradition on the first night in...

On Sunday Dec 21, we kicked off our winter holiday adventure. First, taking the train to Paris! Sadly, as soon as we were north of Barcelona, we were basically engulfed in rain and fog for most of the trip, but we did get to travel along the Mediterranean coast for a good while.  When we got to Paris, it was already dark (after 4pm) and rainy. We had no trouble getting on the metro to find our hotel in the Marais area of Paris. We were a little soggy when we got to the hotel! I used Chase Rewards points to book the Hotel de JoBo --  the hotel website made it seem like it was much too chic for us, but it's a nice little boutique hotel. We were on the Josephine's roses floor - everything was covered in rose prints from floor to ceiling. There was a cute little box of macarons to welcome us. The room was tiny, but this is Paris... you're supposed to go out and see things.  We bundled up and walked through the Marais, which is full of high-end shops and cafes along narrow li...

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 ...