Merry Christmas!

Saturday December 25, 2010 Day 178

Merry Christmas! Another cold? Bah, humbug!! We were fortunate to have really good health on our trip, but this is a bummer now!

We got up late, bought some croissants and coffee in a Muslim bakery which likely doesn’t celebrate Christmas, then walked along the marina area where we saw several street sculptures.

Giant lobster sculpture outside a restaurant

Street sculpture - possibly by Gaudi

Sailing sculpture

We saw a number of luxury yachts (is there any other kind?). We kept seeing signs announcing Barcelona World Race, and as we approached a certain area of the marina, we were able to go down onto the pier, where we saw eleven of fourteen boats which are set to go on a round-the-world race starting New Year’s Eve. They are crewed by teams of only two people, among whom are three women. This year, for the first time, there will be an all-woman crew. Their boat is GAES Centros Auditivos (Gaes Hearing Center). They are Dee Caffari and Anna Corbella, a Spanish-British duo. I think I will pull for them. The race is non-stop. In the first year of competition (2007-2008), it took 92 days to complete. This is only the second edition of the race.

Me outside the women's yacht

The only two-woman yacht in the race

We had a seafood lunch - the restaurant had no special Christmas menu so we just enjoyed ourselves with seafood. Afterward we walked up La Rambla. It was rather cold, but fortunately not windy, so walking was tolerable. We paused near the end of La Rambla to admire some statues and fountain before heading back down, and I made a sudden decision to break with tradition, since this holiday is very untraditional for us anyway. I saw a woman holding a Starbucks cup, and I searched the recess of my mind for some Spanish vocabulary and came up with “Pardon, donde esta Starbucks?” As I first began to speak to her, she ignored me, probably thinking I was a beggar. But she absorbed my question, pointed across an intersection and said it was across from Burger King, which we could see. I thanked her and we headed for the coffee shop - the first American restaurant chain we have entered since arriving in Europe. I had a macchiato and Roger a hot chocolate. The hot drinks in the warm restaurant were a delight. Even though it was barely 4:00, the sun was no longer shining on the streets and the air was decidedly cooler than when we started out. There were lots of street performers on La Rambla. Several of them were variations on the "living statue" theme.



Street-side Yoda?



Three laughing heads

Golden roofs in the late afternoon sunshine



A headless guy who, a few seconds later, lifted his hand to shake hands with the girl

On our way back to the hotel, we passed the market which we saw yesterday evening. We walked around looking at the merchandise, and Roger bought a ring to replace his Texas Tech class ring which disappeared a few years ago. I bought a white knit hat, and we wished each other Merry Christmas.

In the evening we Skyped the Wedels and Stantons for a bit and I got to see all my siblings except for my brother, who is in Argentina. I saw my great nephew James for the first time. He was born just after we came to France. We tried to Skype Alicia as well, but we couldn’t seem to get together. It was after 9:00 by this time and we were hungry, so we walked to La Rambla and ate some highly mediocre pasta from a take-away place. Upon our return to the hotel, we were finally able to talk to Alicia and Peter and wish them a Merry Christmas.