Time to get down to brass tacks and share the rest of our visit to Barcelona. Today I wanted to share where we stayed and explored. Now that we’ve gotten the Sagrada Familia out of the way, I think we can manage!

We so enjoyed ourselves in that sunny city, and we’ve already said we’d like to go back. We spent four days and three nights eating all the tapas, drinking lots of wine, and checking out all of their hipster-est coffee shops. All those spots later this week. But today, I thought it would be fun to tell you what we loved exploring and where we stayed while we were there. Here we go!

First, we stayed in an Airbnb apartment that was super. Michael found it by chance in the millions available for Barcelona and we’d definitely stay there again. The owner, Raimundo, made so many great recommendations and incredibly friendly. It was a one bedroom with floor to ceiling navy velvet curtains and a bed that has convinced us to upgrade our mattress at home. It was right around the corner from the Metro, which brings me to the second thing we loved about Barcelona: the Metro was fast and clean and came really often! We can never get over how fun it is to miss a train in continental cities – you only have to wait a few minutes for the next one! In Dublin, that is not the case.

Since we had heard a lot of stories about friends getting pickpocketed in Barcelona, we were really conscious of our belongings at all times. At one point, I was holding my camera by the strap in one hand and an older woman stopped me to tell me to put the strap around my neck since sometimes bad dudes will just run by and grab your camera. So it stayed right around my neck the rest of the visit! We thankfully made it through the weekend without any incidents.

Now, let’s get down to the fun stuff. First, Antoni Gaudí’s architecture (like the Sagrada Familia) is everywhere and mind-blowing and all under construction. Well, maybe not all of it, but all of the buildings we saw were at least partly covered in scaffolding. Some of them, like the Sagrada Familia, are simply not finished yet, and some of them are now being repaired.

We took the metro, then climbed the hill, then rode the escalator up to the Parc Guell. Another Barcelona feature designed by Gaudi, Parc Guell is a park commandeered by the city in the early 1900’s as a place for residents to escape to. We did see a few locals running the paths through the hill nearby, but otherwise the Parc Guell was pretty packed with tourists. The Parc Guell wasn’t our favorite spot in the city for that reason, it’s just hard to enjoy a place when all you see are selfie sticks and GoPro cameras! Of course, the view was hazy which didn’t help.

But it was impressive nonetheless. Can you even believe all those little bits of mosaic?

Then we rolled our way back down the hill to the city center and with all the passing tourists going the other direction, we were really glad we had already left! We were much happier wandering the streets and gazing up at all the plants and flags hanging off the balconies.

Also, oranges! In December! I’m quite proud of my restraint in only posting one photo of the oranges, considering my phone and camera were both full of them. It’s my dream to one day live in a place where I can grow citrus on a tree in the garden, even if it’s just for a little while. And if I come to visit you and you have citrus trees, I will probably pick them all.

We visited the Picasso Museum, where the only photo I took was of these spiky palm fronds in the courtyard. The Picasso Museum is almost worth the entrance fee just to see the building. It’s a labyrinth of stone rooms, and Picasso was a genius. From the time he was a child he was painting portraits and he went away to art school to study full time when he was just a teen.

We made a quick visit to the Mercat de la Boqueria market, which we found to be a little too crowded for our liking. We sat in the back for a little while and had a delicious platter of patatas bravas and stopped for a few  pieces of overpriced chocolate on the way out, but then we skedaddled! 

We preferred the local market near our apartment where we stocked up on clementines and fresh eggs and already ripe avocados for breakfast. It was much calmer and felt more authentic. Can you even believe the selection of fruits and vegetables available in December?

Of course, it was also just before Christmas when we were in Barcelona, so there were little Christmas markets full of pointsettias and mistletoe. They are also big into nativity scenes, so we saw lots of tiny figurines. And also moss? We couldn’t figure out why there was so much moss and bark, but I think they use it to give their nativity scenes a little more ambiance and texture. Correct me if I’m wrong with that guess from left field! 

The lights were so fun and so different from Dublin’s Christmas lights. We really liked the upside down gumdrop lights below. 

This light show wasn’t part of the Christmas decorations, it happens all year round. It’s called the Magic Fountain of Montjuïc and we weren’t its biggest fans. I really think swarms of tourists are my instant off button.

Later in the week, I’ll share where we ate and shared tapas and had a few drinks. Until then, have a really wonderful Tuesday!

I finally took down our 2014 calendar this weekend, and belatedly dove into the 2015 calendar rabbit hole of Etsy. Our calendar lives right inside our front door, so I’d like something that blends in with the look of the entry room. The color scheme (to be revealed soon) is a mix of red and turquoise and blue.

Any one of these calendars from Slovenian Etsy shop DURIDO would be so cheery to see every day. I’m leaning toward the bottom two, the red one is probably the front-runner of the moment.

What’s your favorite?

On Christmas Eve, my family sat around the table together for the dinner we always have on Christmas Eve, or at least for as long as I can remember. In fact, now we have it whether we’re apart or together, since I’ve started making the same thing in Dublin as well, but it’s even more special in its original place.

My mom made her French onion soup and fresh French bread and salad. This year, we added specially imported (in my suitcase!) artisan Irish butter that was so much more yellow and delicious than its American counterparts. And we sat at a table decked out with an Irish linen tablecloth I sent my mom last year for Christmas. We share a few bottles of red, a montepulciano and a tempranillo. Since my father-in-law introduced those to our family, they’re the go-to’s now.

I like when my two lives mix so happily.

I went out this morning, bundled against the 17 degree weather and armed with a borrowed camera to take a few photos of New Year’s Day in Maine for a post on Conde Nast Traveler that should be up later today. I’ll admit I wasn’t terribly excited about my morning project. The sun was out, but the wind chill made the temperature drop to a real feel of 5 degrees Fahrenheit, which isn’t really conducive to a photo walk where you need at least a few functioning fingers. We also don’t have any snow, so the beautiful winter wonderland Maine I was hoping to show the world was looking a little brown and dull.

But I bundled up in my mom’s puffer coat (because nothing I brought can really cope with 5 degrees) and headed off in the younger of the old Volvos to find something picturesque that would do Maine justice in a round-up of New Year’s Day around the world. I found some cows having breakfast, and a flock of turkeys munching in a nearby field. I drove past some crazy ice fishermen who had managed to survive their questionable decision to drill holes in ice that totally isn’t thick enough way too close to open water.

I was headed home, figuring I had enough to work with, when I noticed a stream running under the road from one side to the other. I pulled over and parked the car. I walked back along the road, camera in hand. From the road, I could see the stream was bigger than I had initially thought, flanked on either side with frozen chunks of ice. Perfect, I thought, this will be much more picturesque than the turkeys.

So I crunch, crunch, crunched my way along the stream, holding branches back as I picked my way along the frozen oak leaves. As I got further along the stream, I realized that barely twenty yards away was a full fledged waterfall. Waterfalls are beautiful any time of the year. Surprise waterfalls are more fun. But I’ll bet surprise waterfalls in below zero weather win the waterfall prize. Big mounds of ice were freezing along both sides, creating the illusion of snow. The drips were forming into stalactite-looking icicles and snowflake-looking crystals in every pool and puddle. 

A few weeks ago I was so excited about the prospect of a new year starting. Before Christmas, I was already starting to think about what I would do with the clean slate and the extra time the holidays were taking up. I wanted to enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas, but it felt a little like everything was on hold until they passed – there was exactly enough time for what needed to be done, but no extra room for the dreaming and planning of things to come. In addition to the excitement of the holidays, I was physically buzzing at the excitement of a new year beginning, of the sheer hope those fresh chances bring.

But at some point over the last few weeks, that spirit of excitement for the beginning of 2015 disappeared. We had a wonderful holiday, full of laughter and chats and warmth with my family. But here and there, I found an underlying heaviness to it. Sickness and injury and a few sadnesses among our ever-growing extended family made it feel as if the holiday cheer was under fire, like we were all holding it up with all our strength. For the last few days, I’ve felt worn, and when I woke up this morning on the first day of 2015 I just felt worried. Worried that all those projects and goals and clean slate resolutions I was so looking forward to starting today just wouldn’t work. I was worried that my own brute strength couldn’t pull off my ideas and improvements, and what if I was just setting myself up for disappointment? 

So I suppose that was the underlying problem my mind was chewing on when I headed out this morning, camera in hand. And when I happened upon my surprise freezing waterfall, it cracked the shell of worry that had been building over the last few weeks of worrying about my family that was threatening to sink its tentacles into 2015. With the sparkling sunlight and spraying, splashing mist, the worries shattered.

My surprise freezing waterfall was a message, it was God’s way of saying to me, Look what I did! I made this amazing, intricate, awe-inspiring thing! Don’t you worry, we’re going to do those amazing things on your list. You still get to be filled with that big, buzzing excitement of hope.

I believe strongly (and rationally) that worry does very little to help anything, I’m a problem-solver and I’m armed with lists! But it’s scary how pervasive a feeling worry can be, and how heavily it can weigh on your spirit, sinking its tentacles into whatever it can find and creating pockets of doubt. Worry will probably always be there, and as our family grows, the problems will sometimes seem to multiply. But today I was reminded (for me it was by the God I believe in, but for you it might come from nature or the universe, or even from me right now!) that we can’t allow the worry to overshadow the rest of our lives, and that the big, buzzing hope of starting a fresh new year is still very much there and ready for the lists. I returned to the house lighter and ready for the lists, with freezing fingers that tingled as they thawed. Tomorrow, there will be resolutions and lists and clean slates. Tonight, I am thankful to be finishing the first day of 2015 with that buzzing excitement of hopefulness again. 2015 is going to be big and bright, and I hope you and yours are filled with that incredible spirit of hope that a new year (and a surprise freezing waterfall) brings. xx

Happy New Year’s Eve, friends! I accidentally and unintentionally fell off the radar in the last week or so while spending time with friends and family back in Maine. I can’t say I feel particularly rested heading into 2015, but I am armed with my list of resolutions (love ’em!) and ready to take on the new year. I’ll have those to share with you tomorrow, but in the meantime, thank you for sharing 2014 with me. I hope you have a healthy and happy last day of 2014 and I’ll see you on the other side!