David's Diary: Friday, December 21, 2001
Christmas Shopping in Barcelona
El Corte Inglés
We had decided months ago not to send presents to family and friends except for the children and each other. For everyone else, we made a donation to charity, but we were still left with the daunting task of doing all of the shopping for each other and the children in a city we did not know in a country where few people speak English.
FNAC
For two days, Karalee and I left Dragonsinger early, leaving Jocelyn in charge of the boys. We took advantage of the large El Corte Inglés department store in Barcelona for many of our presents. On board Dragonsinger, we have a Dell Inspiron computer that we bought specifically for our trip. The portable PC includes a DVD player, a great screen, and powerful external speakers that we use to play movies.
While in France, we made several visits to FNAC. This chain specializes in computers, other electronic items, CDs, and DVDs. Because we know the stores from France we were glad that there is a branch in Barcelona just off Place de Catalunya where we stocked up on goodies for under the Christmas tree, including quite a few DVDs from FNAC.
Christmas Stalls
We sent some Christmas decorations from Canada to the boat, but one thing we had left out was Christmas stockings. While Karalee was happy to use something else, Jocelyn, Kevin, Allen, and I all felt that it really wasn't Christmas without stockings hanging by the tree. No matter that the tree would be homemade out of pine cones and sit on top of the chart table, we needed stockings.
Exhausted after two days of shopping, we were on our way back to the boat loaded with gifts, but no stockings, when we passed the large square in front of the main Cathedral in the Barri Gothic quarter of Barcelona. At Christmas time the entire plaza is covered with Christmas stalls. We stopped long enough to find one stall selling simple, but lovely Christmas stockings. Our request for five cleaned out the stall of their entire supply, but we had a happy boat when we got back with our purchases.