This has been the longest summer break since Allita started school at 3 years old.  The last day of school in Tucson was May 22.  The first day of school in Barcelona hasn’t even happened yet!!  On Monday, September 10, we interview at one of the local schools where she has applied.  Hopefully this will lead to her starting school in the next week or so.  I am ready, even if she is not.  

In the interim, we have spent considerable time getting settled and doing the typical “back to school” stuff that we would do in the U.S.  Every chance we get, we pop into one of the many little shops we pass while walking the neighborhood and see what they have that might be of use or interest.  One store, Flying Tiger, we found particularly entertaining with all their unusual office and school supplies.  For example, we had never seen fur-covered staplers or bear calculators.  Nor had we ever seen such a collection of flip-sequin covered items.  It was kid school supply nirvana – complete with a bubble machine outside the entrance.

We also, literally, stumbled upon an underground mall (L’illa Diagonal) only a couple blocks away from our house.  The discovery was quite accidental and, as such, it took us some effort and ingenuity to re-discover the entrance when we returned to explore it at a later date.  This mall is unlike any I have ever explored – even when compared to underground shopping areas in Atlanta and New York City.  First, the mall is three floors.  Floor zero is in the middle.  This is the floor you might walk into from the street, if you were walking from the subway or coming from the south side of the city.  Floor one is on top.  This is also the floor you might walk into from the street.  What?!?  Yes, indeed!  If you are walking on the sidewalk beside the major thoroughfare called Avinguda Diagonal or coming from the north of the city.   Then there is floor -1.  To reach this floor, you must either come from the parking garage up the escalator/elevator or take it down from floor 0.  Frankly, I don’t even want to know how to reach the parking garage. I couldn’t find this mall when I was walking. Driving is unimaginable.

Regardless of the confusing arrangement, the contents of this mall are uniquely fascinating and yet typical for Barcelona.  Most of floor -1 is dedicated to food.  Food in all forms.  Restaurants, open markets, delis, confectionaries, bakeries, butcher shops, fruit and vegetable stands, cafeterias, grocery stores, and boutiques that specialize in dairy-free, gluten-free, vegan, etc.  This area is my favorite of all of them because it is filled completely with so many different sights and smells. There are even some lovely flower shops – one in particular that we found right outside the mall and yet in the middle of the mall at the same time. Also, there is a massive grocery store, Caprabo, located in the middle of the lower floor. 

Floor 0 and floor 1 contain many of the typical mall stores.  There’s the LEGO store, the Disney store and a variety of other kid-oriented shops.  There are clothing, jewelry, kitchen and shoe stores galore.  There are many upscale shops such as Swarovski, Swatch, Rolex and Moschino. There is also a fascinating store called FNAC where I purchased a large toaster oven and a wifi extender.  I could also have purchased an electric scooter for Allita or a gas-powered clothes dryer for Mom.  Neither of which are needed but were interesting to explore in any case.   There are some very lovely, elegant boutique shops (tea, candles, art, music, etc.) scattered throughout these floors and there is a fun place to learn how to fly a drone through an obstacle course.  The mall has free wifi and a variety of other amenities that are somewhat atypical for us (such as very plush seating areas with leather recliners and phone or computer charging stations – all free and available for use).  

So, even as we count down to the end of summer break (hopefully), we continue to explore our new locale and all of the many lovely little markets sprinkled here and there and, apparently, even underneath.