A week in Italy over Christmas — Mass at St. Peter's with the Pope on Christmas morning, the Colosseum at night with ChatGPT as a tour guide, Michelangelo's David and the Vasari Corridor in Florence, and Venice's canals, the Doge's Palace, and the campanile in the fog. The best leg of the whole European trip.

Three days in Barcelona — Gaudí's architectural theology at the Sagrada Família, Park Güell and the Gothic Quarter, discovering Catalan identity, getting scammed over a croissant at 1:30 AM, and an honest verdict on a city I expected to love more than I did.

Eight days in Berlin in December — half work trip, half slow discovery of a city that refuses to erase its own memory. Co-working until 9 PM, Christmas markets, the DDR Museum and the Holocaust Memorial, the East Side Gallery, and what German work culture taught me about actually logging off.