Well, I guess this is kind of my day!!!! I had two quite interesting and quite improbable experiences today. First, while we were in the metro station a young Asian girl approached me and asked in French if I could help her. I said I spoke only English and she asked....ME... to assist HER in getting a ticket in the ticket machine. I had just done that for our own and so I went ahead and helped her. But after I thought......she is asking ME to help her with getting a ticket in the Paris underground....my first time in like 30 years!!!! Quite an unusual experience. Then later in the restaurant for lunch I ordered a salad nicoise and the waitress said, your French is impeccable....the pronunciation is PERFECT. Well, let me tell you I was floating around for an hour after that!!! I have not spoken French since high school. So, yes, this was my day.
So, lets start by saying we shopped today....that is it. There is an area where there are several famous and really nice stores....lets simply say quite upscale. So the first FLOOR of Printemps store was huge but all they sold were hand bags.....women's purses. Thousands of them....at astronomical prices....then we found out that there were TWO COMPLETE FLOORS with only purses. It was truly incredible. Most sales people were Asian and 90% of the customers were Asian. There was every famous designer known on sale. It was really something. Then we hit the 3rd floor and the ENTIRE FLOOR was watches.....again, every upsale brand that one could imagine...with prices in the many thousands. Again, most cumstomers were Asian. So the Japanese and Chinese must be doing well. But the best one was as I walked along beside one watch counter was a cabinet of phones made by the watch company and one phone that I saw was...........$25,000!!!!! So, you all better trade in your 4S Iphone for this new model!!!!
WE checked out the women's floor and the men's departments and moved on to Lafayete another famous department store. They had 3 BUILDINGS....one for female items, one for men and one was for household items....and each one had like 6 floors. Before getting too far into it we stopped for lunch nearby at a crowded, noisy restaurant and had some great food. This time it was my salad nicoise that made me a French icon!!! Then back tto the store, first the female building, then the men's and finally the household items. WE all bought "something" for gifts or for ourselves, but the icing on the cake (literally) was the mezzanine, which was a huge floor with ONLY CANDY AND COOKIES. I was so overwhelmed by it that I had to take a picture. They did have a small wine shop but 95% was candy and/or cookies. It was incredible. And of course lots of gift ideas. Looking at the items gave me a perspective of an example of the idea that something being gourmet is totally relative. I saw a box of Kelloggs cereal that costs 12 Euros or about $15 a box!!! Of course this common cereal to us is quite a gourmet item in France where it is not available except for stores like this. Cool!!!
After in the late afternoon, we worked our way home stopping at knock off purse stores all along the street....all owned & operated by Chinese. They all were wholesalers but of course would "this time only" sell one or two purses. They really did look nice though, really quite nice. So back we are and now relaxing and awaiting doing dinner with some wine, figs and cheese. I guess I may wait until later to do a addendum to Day 4 if dinner is worth mentioning.
Tomorrow we are doing the first museum day and have to plan it well so we get our Paris Pass money's worth. But, I probably will "see" you later to explain dinner.
One more thing....the area around these department stores were just full of people buying....it was not just crowded but really overwhelmingly full of people....and most had fancy shopping bags under their arms!!!
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