Paris-Day 3: The Fleas

It’s Day 3 in Paris and we’re acclimatizing quite well. Air Canada is a distant unpleasant memory, we’re over our jet lag and Maggie has shopped. For my part, I have completed my transformation and have been fully assimilated. I have become a Parisian. La vie est belle. Toujours elle est belle!

We shower and dress for breakfast. While Maggie is touching up her makeup, I adjust my neck scarf to give my look that jaunty, casual Parisian touch and we head down on the Schmurf Express for some café crème and croissants.

Day 3 was originally intended to be dedicated to Montmartre and Sacre Coeur but I suggest a change of plans for Maggie. This isn't a first visit to Paris for either Maggie or I. Maggie attended university here in her final year and I lived in Europe for three years. We have seen most of the major tourist sites in the past and feel somewhat free to amend our planned assault on the city from time to time.

I have come across a large outdoor market that I thought might be fun to explore. Maggie goes one better. She has come across an even larger outdoor market and bazaar and, of course, that is the one to which we will be going.

One smalll part of Les Puces de Saint-Ouen

It is called Les Puces de Saint-Ouen but is known by we Parisians as Les Puces (the fleas). It is located in the area of Porte de Clignancourt and is the largest and most popular flea market and outdoor bazaar in Paris.

We skip our original economical plan of using the Metro and opt for a taxi. I am rapidly becoming aware of the fact that the Euro has no value as real money for us, which means I suppose that we are thinking of Euros in pretty much the same way as international money traders. We spend Euros like so much pocket change.

Another alley of vendors at the marche

It hardly matters. We’re having a great time and it is, after all, the City of Lights.

We arrive at the market and I admit that I was more than just a little awestruck by it. The thing was beyond huge, spanning two sides of a six-lane highway and comprised of hundreds of stalls, stores, shops, cafes and fast food vendors. The City claims it is the largest market of its type in the world. I don't know if that's true but it is big.

We become aware very quickly that this is not a simple flea market. This is a bazaar with an unbelievable variety of offerings. There are antique dealers, artists, toys for children, souvenirs of Paris, sports clothing, women’s and men’s clothing, shoes, purses, African artifacts, kitchen utensils, electronics, sunglasses and genuine Rolex watches on sale for only 10 Euros for three of them. Imagine. Three Rolex watches for the equivalent of $14.00 Canadian! 

Ok. So if some of the stuff is junk, it still adds to the carnival atmosphere of the place which has thousands of people wandering the streets, alleys and vendor stalls. There is music, laughter and the smell of fresh crepes and stale cheap leather hanging in the air like a tart’s perfume.

We've been walking for an hour and haven't come
close to reaching the end of it

We each buy a pair of sunglasses, just to get ourselves into the spirit of being there and then move on to the first row of vendor stalls. 

Within seconds, we are stopped in front of a purse vendor and within minutes ‘we’ have acquired a new red purse although I doubt I will get to use it much. It doesn’t match any of my outfits. I had wanted to haggle the price as is expected of a Parisian but Maggie paid the vendor before I could open my mouth.

The next stop was a shoe vendor who specialized in handmade African sandals. They were quite well done and not all that cheap so we decided to get a pair for the youngest daughter who likes things like that. Maggie was about to pay the man but I stepped forward and advised her that true Parisians do not pay full price. They haggle and now that I was a Parisian, she should let me attend to it.

I haggled and was able to knock the price down 30%. Maggie was so impressed that she immediately bought herself a scarf, tied it around her neck and became Parisian so that she too could haggle.

I think Maggie considered this particular vendor
to be holy ground or at the very least, a shrine

She got her chance at the next stall where she spotted a ¾ length wool coat that was lined and perfect for our late autumn season. It was multicolored, almost patchwork with each square on the coat depicting a highly stylized scene in bright colours. Maggie stepped forward and haggled. It was a valiant effort but the first time the vendor countered, she handed him the money. Apparently assimilation into a new culture takes a little longer for some more than others.

We bought yet more scarves and I was beginning to think we might have to buy another suitcase just to carry all the scarves that we were acquiring.

After an hour, it was time to relax over (say it with me now) café crème. I was feeling peckish and decided to order something light to eat. I wanted, of all things, a hot dog; nothing fancy just a plain old fashioned hot dog. Fortunately, the brasserie seemed to offer hot dogs although we were not completely sure of the menu translation.

There are more purses and shoes at Les Pucess
than there are rosaries at Fatima

They offered two items that might be hot dogs. The first was saucisse avec frites which loosely translated means sausage with fries. The other was Frankfort avec frites which because it was close to the word frankfurter, we assumed might mean hot dog. Maggie asked our waiter the difference between the two items only to be told they were the same thing and there was no difference. 

Don’t try to figure out the logic behind that, let’s just pretend we understand and move along.

To be safe, I ordered a saucisse avec frites and a Frankfort. The waiter was correct. They were identical and even looked like hot dogs lying naked, bunless and forlorn on my plate. A baguette in a small bread basket was served as an accessory. The mustard was spicy Dijon mustard which I thought was a little fancy for a hot dog but there were no other options so on it went. The hot dog looked like a hot dog but it didn’t taste like a hot dog. It was cold and crying out for the flavour that only the extra additives and chemicals put into North American hot dogs provide. It was too…well; there is no other word for it….healthy.

Within fifty feet there were no less than a dozen
guys with as many watches on their wrists
offering 'genuine' Rolexes at 3 for 10 Euros. I was
going to buy one until the face fell off it while I
was haggling with the Rolex representative.

We crossed under the highway overpass that divided the bazaar in two and started exploring the other side of the market which was even larger than the part we had already seen. It was like touring a Louvre for those who love junk and bright colours. Maggie bought a crepe and more scarves. I started looking at luggage.

I bought a small handmade wooden train for our grandson. Each car was made up of the individual letters in his name and it was so reasonably priced and well-made, I didn’t have the heart to haggle. I took off my scarf for a moment, pretended to be a tourist from North America and paid full price for it.

We went into a small shop that specialized in Japanese antiquities and could have bought a 300 year old suit of Samurai armour for a measly 4500 Euros but decided to pass because it wouldn’t fit in our suitcase and they didn’t have my size or colour.

We wandered through a few galleries and eventually purchased three pen and ink sketches of various parts of Paris and then at another purse stall, picked up a multi-coloured purse for the oldest daughter. Our son-in-law got a tee shirt and a scarf. He’s somewhat metrosexual in a manly sort of way.

An hour later, we were in a taxi on the way back to the hotel. It was about 6:00 in the evening and we were starting to get hungry. On the way back, we passed Napoleon’s tomb and drove through Place Concord which used to be called Revolution Square because it is where the guillotine was set up during the French Revolution. 

There is something that impacts on you by being surrounded by so much history. It’s almost like driving through the emotional memories of time itself.

In Paris, if  you don't like the traffic lane you have,
 you simply create your own.
Parisian drivers are very egalitarian.

We enjoyed an extended dinner at a café watching Death Race 2000 and comparing shoes on the countless women walking by in front of our table on the patio. When it was dark, we headed back to the hotel where Maggie examined her purchases and said good night to each of them individually.

Day 4 was a working day for Maggie. We were actually in Paris so that she could attend a conference representing Canada at the Organization of Economic Development and Cooperation. 

Because she had an early start to the next day, we called it a night and hit the pit surrounded by the smell of leather.



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Paris-Day 2: Cultured and Assimilated
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