A Dublin Getaway!

Back by popular demand….. me!
After a few comments from various friends and family, I’m picking back up where I left off last fall with various (mis)adventures, some partially written. 

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Another day another long weekend where I ditch my husband to go visit my friends.

While poor Frenchman has some projects that are keeping him chained to his desk, I on the other hand happen to have free time and some friends located in interesting places. A good friend recently [September 2017] moved to Dublin for grad school and, never having made it to Ireland before, I decided to be such a good friend and visit her to help her get settled into her new home.

On the Must Do list:

• Guinness – drink some, visit the brewery
• Scones – eat some, preferably with delicious Irish butter
• Tea – to go with the scones, naturally
• Fish & Chips – eat some, probably with Guinness
• Oh and I guess visit some of the city…

Clearly I have my priorities straight.

We went to Barcelona!

Barcelona has been on my list for a long time now, and I finally got to check it – and a new country! – off as visited. Originally, we had planned to visit Barcelona in the summertime, for the prime-time experience of beaches, sunshine, all the good stuff. Unfortunately, life got in the way and by the time we were in a position to plan a trip, we were looking at mid-November. We decided to head on down to Barcelona anyway, even if we wouldn’t be splashing in the waves this time of year. (Spoiler alert: toes were dipped).

A long weekend in Barcelona

We left bright and early in the morning for our short flight – less than 2 hours – to Barcelona. We were in the city and checked into our hotel before it was even lunchtime.

Oh the Places I’ll Go

Being the insane over-organizer that I am (thanks, Mom), I have an entire spreadsheet dedicated to restaurants I want to try. There are columns for the name, the location, the type of food, a dollar-sign system for rating how expensive it is, a column for checking off when I’ve been there, and a field for notes to keep in mind before and after visiting.

As crazy as it sounds, it has actually been really helpful over the years. Who doesn’t walk around their city and spot a cool cafe or restaurant and think “I’ll have to remember that!” – and then promptly forget all about it. You forget the name, or you forget where you were wandering when you saw it… just enough to make it impossible to Google later. … or is that just me?