The Sheldon Global Economic Stimulus -Stuff we bought on our cruise

I'm missing a photo of the tapestry wall hanging we bought in Erice for David, and I'm not posting photos of items we bought on behalf of other people that are currently still wrapped up.

For those of you who are not aware - I've been collecting elephants for over 30 years. I have several hundred of them of all shapes and sizes. After all these years, the elephants have to be something I don't already have, which is getting tough. You will see that I managed to find quite a few on our trip.

Here we go:

Barcelona:

This is a finger puppet from a from a flea market in Barcelona right near La Rambla:

This is an African marble-sand painting we bought from a street artist along La Rambla:

Ceramic art is really big in Spain. We bought these along Princessa Street in Barcelona:

We were pleasantly surprised to find Jewish themed items.

This is a ceramic coaster - unfortunately, we could only find one (I wanted 4 or 6). What's really nice is that the menorah has 7 branches, which makes it a "standard" menorah, as opposed to the more popular Hanukkah menorah with 9 branches. Hanukkah menorahs are more popular, because Hanukkah is the most well known of all the many Jewish holidays.

The "standard" 7 branch menorah is actually a Jewish religious symbol, as opposed to the Start of David, which is not:

The following are two Judaic ceramic plates - the top one is a 7 branch menorah, the bottom one is a Magen David (Star of David/Jewish star):

Pictures composed of tiles are also popular. Andy and I have a fond memory of a tiled thing his parents had brought back from Portugal many years ago. This piece reminded us of the one his parents had. We were really worried about getting it home on the plane, because it was so big and very heavy. The vendor wrapped it in umpteen layers of bubble wrap. Instead of carrying it around for the rest of the afternoon, we took a taxi back to the hotel to drop it off, then went back to the same neighborhood to go to the Picasso Museum.

Thankfully it fit perfectly in my suitcase. When it came time to pack for the airplane, we juggled stuff around between suitcases to evenly distribute the weight, so we wouldn't be charged for an over-weight bag. Where were are going to put this in the house, we have absolutely no idea:

Of course, I had to have a Spanish fan. This one is hand painted on raw silk. I need to get a little plate stand to display it on the mantle of our fireplace:

We didn't have a lot of time in Eze (France) at all. We stumbled across a tiny art gallery. If we had realized we had another 10 minutes to shop, we might have bought an actual original oil canvas, but since we thought we were running out of time, we went with a placemat:

This is an original water color from a local artist in Portofino. His gallery is at the very top of the castle:

Back in Santa Margherita, most of the shops were closed between 1:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. One street vendor was still open - she had some really nice ceramic artwork.

Of course, first the elephant. I like this one, because he looks like a dog with a long nose:

The vendor also had several ceramic land/seascapes - it was tough to make a choice, but the one of Portofino won:

We didn't find anything we liked on the day we were in Tuscany. We made up for that the next day when we were in Erice and Trapani in Sicily.

We wandered around Trapani for a couple of hours in the morning before the bus tour started.

I can't remember the name of the stone that this made of, but it's not onyx or malachite or quartz. I have another elephant of the same stone, but it's beige. This one is black and pink:

This one is ceramic. I can't remember if I bought this in Erice or Trapani:

In Erice, we noticed ceramic pieces of ducks that hung their heads over the edge of a table, which was really cute, but I don't collect ducks. Luckily, I found an elephant in the same style:

Our biggest (and last) purchase was a Berber silk rug that we haggled for in the souk in Medina, Tunisia. I think it's about 3.5 feet by 4 feet (haven't actually measured it yet). It's never going to touch the floor. It's going up on the wall above the sofa in the family room:

It's good to know that the Sheldons have done their part to support the global economy.