Bonjour mon ami!

This year, I got to celebrate Thanksgiving overlooking the Seine with a side of French bread. Not too shabby.

I met my cousins in Paris on Thursday and enjoyed a delicious (and very legitimate, thanks to my aunt's cranberry imports and fantastic cooking) dinner. Everyone around us may have been speaking French and the only parades we saw were museum workers on strike (seriously), but we still enjoyed all the American classics.

We spent Friday at Versailles, exploring the decadent bedrooms, the unbelievable Hall of Mirrors and the sprawling gardens. Everything just felt so French. (Yet another language barrier could have been a part of that. However, my conversational Catalan was actually helpful. I'm debating if I should list it as a "Skill" on my resume.)

On Saturday we made our way through the gigantic Musee D'Orsay, focusing on the Impressionist wings (my favorite part). It would have been impossible to see everything — the converted train station is filled with five floors worth of art. We were lucky that we could even go into the museum — one of the other major attractions (Centre Pompidou) was striking, and rumor has it that all the other museums will be too.

We braved the elements and hit the pavement to stroll the Parisian streets (and admire all of the beautiful stores). The window displays even look prettier in France.

It was a brief trip, but I had a great time — and considering I wasn't stateside, it was really nice to be with family for Turkey Day.

I made it back to Barcelona just in time for "El Clasico" — the epic fútbol match-up between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. We started scoping out a place to watch at 6 or so (game time was 7) and found every bar, restaurant and cafe in the city to be PACKED. Apparently no one watches from home. We managed to squeeze our way into the pizza place across the street and watched Barca eke out a 1-0 win (despite a ton of violence from both sides).

Today at Mar Bella, almost every single one of my kids had on a Barcelona jersey — just in case there was any question about whose side they were on.