day 4 started off pretty poorly. i woke up with a headache, grumpy as all, feeling sick and tired. this despite going to bed very early – i got 10 hours of sleep, but the sleep was very “low quality” – i kept tossing and turning and waking up every time i do so.
i got up first, blogged, woke up, showered, karmun got up around 9am and we again fairly quickly and efficiently got our butts out the door by 9:30.
walking away from the touristy area where we’re staying we headed towards paris’ largest department store – galeries lafayette. a huge department store, full of fancy, designer, unique and other clothes, shoes, bags and anything you can dream of. their shoe floor was mindblowing on several levels. it was really quite insane.
but i’m getting ahead of myself! each morning i wake up grumpy until i have my coffee, and in general because we dive into high energy action quickly after eating we must have breakfast. we found a cute little place near the store where the breakfast for the 2 of us was not only 5 eu cheaper, but also much, much better. compare and contrast:
- louvre area 10eu gets you: a coffee, a croissant OR toast (and they were out of croissants and the toast was very very lame), a little plastic “airplane style” box of jam, orange juice, butter.
- more french oriented dept. store area 7.50eu gets you: a coffee, a croissant, a great baguette toast, a small glass jar of jam, orange juice, butter.
the cafe was very cute otherwise as well. a funny highlight – as we sat and ate i saw a little boy with a russian grandma? (mom? looked too old to be his mom, boy was 7-8 yrs old…) walk in. she perched on the edge of the outer seating area, and instructed him in a classically Russian way to take a photo. then, she actually walked in deeper and posed against the curtains that framed the entrance to the cafe, and he took another photo. and then they ran away. they didn’t even have anything to drink in the stupid cafe, and trust me, the cafe was not even that remarkable!!! ah, hilarious.
in all ways it was a lovely breakfast. and karmun was feeling better; i felt better too upon taking advil cold & sinus. after munching away and waking up we ran through the galeries for women, galeries for men, c&a, another dept store (name forgotten, next to the galeries), galeries for the house, all in about 3 hours.
while most things were madly out of my price range the memorable highlight was indeed the shoe floor. the galeries for maison (for the home) was surprisingly good – though a lot of stuff, or most of it, is available in canada, it was great to see a lot of the familiar brands close and side by side. i can tell you guys, we’re damn lucky – the mid century classic remakes that are produced in europe are about 3 times more expensive.
i also saw my favourite elephaunt – http://www.dwr.com/product/designers/d-g/charles-ray-eames/eames-elephant.do?sortby=ourPicks – very very cute and costs .. 300 eu. at the exchange rate, that’s insane compared to the above, especially given how both are manufactured by licensed authentic makers.
after speeding through the dept stores we decided we’ll split up and return tomorrow – me, to cover the cheaper and more “old lady” c&a, and karmun to cover in detail the dept store which is not in my reality for most clothes. next on our list was to hit up the area where we had the nice authentic dinner 2 days ago.
on the way to our dinner we passed by a few shoe and clothing stores where i noticed some stuff that i really liked – a pair of cream flats for 30eu and a black dress for 35eu. the general area was close to a bunch of japanese eateries. by guess and intution we managed to cross from the dept stores into that area and actually find all the stores we saw before.
side note. paris is really hard to navigate because nothing is paralelle. it is very web like; all streets are diagonal; and for my intuition, when i think i’m going in the right direction in reality, like a man lost in the desert, i’m slowly veering off course without knowing it. i.e. i’ll think i’m going towards point A and i’ll arrive at point B 15 minutes walk from A – but on the same X axis. its pretty frustrating because usually i feel comfortable orienting myself by memory. well, finally this border was broken – i think i’m getting the hang of it!
as we were “crossing” into the other area we found some burger/meat place that was (a) right there when we (really, i am the driving force for “exhausted-can’t-stand-up-anymore”, so i should say “i” instead of “we”) needed it, and (b) seemed reasonably cheap. i ate a burger which was nice – i needed some beef to get me standing – and i had a glass of white (which always helps, don’t you know), karmun had some beef sticks and the usual coke. it came at a great (reasonable) cost and was a good break in the day.
after lunch we successfully got into the area and very quickly found the right stores. i tried on the shoes, liked them, bought them, and the dress, liked it, bought it. by this point it was getting close to 5-6pm, so we headed back to drop off groceries and take a quick breather.
after the fast -superfast- breather, off we went for karmun’s gucci store on rue Saint Honore. it was actually quite funny inside the store, because i was dress “ghetto” – white skirt, some fairly rumpled top, cheapo flats, and karmun actually put on the high heels to test them out so she look fabulous. i’m pretty sure the gucci guy thought either i’m the sugar moma, or the assistant to some chinese soap opera star.
on the way there we stopped in some boutique little place and karmun bought a pair of really gorgeous, unique, french, beautiful, and possibly slightly overpriced shoes. (she doesn’t care what i say. she knows!)
dropping her purchases off, we headed out to montemarte – karmun for the first time, and me for the 3rd. subway was inbelievably, insanely hot – no air movement, tonnes of people. i broke into an itchy sweat within 10 seconds of standing inside that cab, it was absolutely unbelievable. the weather has generally been sunny and hot – i’m not sure if we’re picking up color, but definitely not losing it.
at the abessess subway station we ended up being the complete noobs by taking the stairs. no wonder there was an insane lineup for the elevator – the freaking stairs had 10345425098427 flights on them. we had to stop twice. and this is AFTER we’ve gained stamina from our 4th floor walk up!!! looking online, looks like we’re the noobs. ah well. excersize :-) turns out its the deepest subway station in paris. the name should’ve hinted…
montemarte was lovely as usual. i drank my tiny (375ml) bottle of riesling; we ate croissants and cherry tomatoes; listened to the guitarists and tried to spy the pickpocketers. we even bargained down a caricature/artist guy to a very cheap price to paint the two of us :-) we promised not to tell how much so that he can try to get the full price from others. funny!
the caricature is adorable and shall be uploaded.
he (the painter) was a very enterntaining and animated guy, chatting to us about pickpocketers, watches, languages, other travellers (supposedly some insane russian couple paid him 150eu for the drawing of the 2 of them. i find it REALLY hard to believe!).
when the sun got low enough we walked over to the moulin rouge – first time for both of us – and yes, very creepy area. no wonder i hadn’t been there before :-) but near the moulin rouge, 2 police cars, metro 30 seconds away, and lots of tourists who looked far more hapless than us (we are always clutching at our bags like mad). after hanging out there we went home, and high on good weather, good mood, and good health stayed up until 1am drinking tea and wine at the local corner bar (until they basically kicked us out).
sleep came at 2:30am. my poor, jetlagged head probably can’t figure out what the hell am i trying to do with the shifting sleep times by 6 hrs each night.