retail therapy paris style

once upon a time, i think when my partner and i first started dating, i said that i wasn't a shopper. he was suitable impressed for a while there...until he witnessed my shopping habits. he wised up after that.

needless to say, i love shopping. mostly for clothes, fashion accessories, and ... wait for it ... shoes.

my shopping is rarely driven by need, mostly it's the high of finding that perfect thing, I didn't know I needed until the instant i found it.

so let's just say i was eagerly anticipating shopping in paris. and let me just say, it didn't disappoint. what did disappoint was the lack of time.

there were two highlights. one was an entire street of shoes...rue meslay in the 3rd arrondisement. i merrily walked down one side of the street, in and out of every store, and came back up the next side, again in and out of every store...and each one had different stock. imagine! my partner gave up after about the third store and took off. he was a bit of a brat that day.

the other highlight was another street of outlet stores (or stock stores as they're called there). Rue d'alesia in the 14th arrondisement. unfortunately for me i didn't have a ton of time to look around as the shops closed at 7p and we got there just after 6p. sadly we never managed to come back to the district.

so many shops, so little time.

for any shoppers planning a trip to paris, and not wanting to shell out loads of euros, check out this link:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20011111/ai_n13930984

there are flea-markets as well, primarily on the weekend. we managed to get to two of them...one at porte d'clignancourt which is mostly antiques, household stuff etc. and definitely worth checking out. we found a woodworking tool that was over 100 years old.

also worth checking out are the depot-ventes or thrift stores. we found only one and i can't remember the name but be forewarned, you'll still see tags that are 100+ euros. time...need more time please.

one rather funny experience was at le bon marche (translates to the good deal) which is the oldest department store in paris and thought to be the most reasonable of the department stores. we went in looking for face cream for my mother...something that screamed paris. the usual suspects were there - clinique, estee lauder, dior...all the regular brands you see everywhere. finally we found something that looked oh so parisian...les fruits de la mer i think was the brand name. i settled on the moisturizer, a serum of some kind, and another cream. to this day i don't know why i didn't bother to ask the price...i always ask the price...anyways i hand the sales associate my credit card and then i think to ask the price. 530 euros which is about $750 CDN. where's the good deal there??

and then there was the ham we bought for 269 euros per kilo.