Today was Easter. Beck slept in, as he likes to do on Sundays, and I again spent the morning writing. The bananas I'd gotten from Monoprix yesterday were not as perfect and spotless as I'm used to, only about half to two-thirds of the meat was unbruised, so I ate them both for breakfast. We went out hoping for bread - it is truly irresistible - but found a convenience store, where we got some juice, garlic and onion, things like that. Across the street from the convenience store was a curious place - a store called Picard, populated entirely by freezers. (Sorry I haven't watched enough TNG to know if there's a good Picard/freezer reference to make, please email me if you can enlighten me on this matter.) Their stock was 95% frozen food and 5% cookies/crackers. The variety was impressive (obviously we went in), to the point where they have a catalog you can take home (obviously we took one). We also bought a few backup meals in case we wound up in another "everything is closed" situation.
Not everything was closed. But the French take days off very seriously, in that nearly every worker expects to work no more than six days per week. I get the sense that part-time jobs here are a lot more stable than back home - you won't work TThFSu one week and MTWF the next week, you have a regular schedule. Even the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays. So many things close on Sundays, and they especially aren't open at 9:45am on Easter Sunday. When I went back out much later, I would see that more things were open. In the morning, though, we walked a long way and didn't find an open bakery We occasionally spotted a person holding a baguette and peer down the tiny alley whence they came, trying to see where the Precious came from.
When we got home, the next item to tackle was the laundry machine. The night before, it had just run and run and run, with wet clothes coming out at the end. We downloaded an English manual for a similar model and pored over its pages, trying to interpret the unfamiliar symbols. We began an experiment with it under controlled conditions. I told my parents via email that I would call them at 4pm my time, since I hadn't spoken with them since we arrived.
And then my friend Lauren, who is living in Paris this month with her dog and her fiance, asked if I wanted to join her at Les Puces de Saint-Ouen. Les puces means flea market, and knowing nothing more than that I heartily assented. Beck was welcome, but decided to stay home and enjoy some quiet time. We arranged to meet just outside the nearest Metro station, the terminus of the 4 line - all the exits are helpfully labeled and named, so you can say exit #2 and everyone will be able to find it. So I got my shit together, including a bag for any potential purchases. I was thinking maybe a straight-edged knife and a wooden spoon, both of which I wanted for the kitchen and were things I would easily be able to find at the flea markets I've been to in my life.
I met Lauren exactly as promised, outside a store called La Corner de la Recyclerie. I was buoyed by seeing her and by having a new adventure companion - not that I'd been down, or that Beck is anything less than sterling. But adventures take on a different tone, depending who's in the adventuring party, and I'm always interested in sampling new methods. For instance, Lauren might feel confident visiting a place where I might otherwise be afraid to go. She may pause to look at objects I would have passed by. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The region between the Metro and Les Puces is presently occupied by a lot of construction work, followed by a huge sprawl of people selling newly-manufactured junk. Clothes and purses knocked off from recognized brands, bongs, wall hangings, caps. Men stood stationary in the passing crowd beneath a wide highway, wearing garlands of sunglasses and pushing cell phone cases under strangers' noses. I can't imagine that's a very successful business model, but they're still there so it must be working on someone. It took us some time to penetrate this outer layer, and I admit I began to feel disappointment when I thought that this might be what we had come to see. But Lauren's sense of adventure (and direction) led us onwards, past more and more rickety stalls, until we started to see more permanent structures clustering around the small streets.
These were the wonderlands. We wandered squat alleys lined with plate glass and open doorways, turning sideways to pass mannequins loaded with antique hats, brooches, pins, scarves, vests, bags. Card tables covered in wooden boxes of beads or chandelier crystals, postcards, comic books. It reminded me of the Portobello Road scene from Bedknobs and Broomsticks. (Dang, Disney has Youtube locked down so hard that I can't find a link to the original version.) I cannot overstate the quantity, and for the most part, quality of the things we found there. We spent hours visiting stores, and must have walked right by hundreds barely able to glance at their contents. Toys, books, art, records, furniture (oh God the furniture), tools, lace...everything. I abandoned the hunt for a knife and a wooden spoon as soon as I realized what we had really found, and devoted myself to looking at (and touching, when appropriate) all of the beautiful things rescued from history. I saw surprisingly few items that made me cringe at their racism, and no weapons or war memorabilia apart from some pins.
Lauren was fascinated by the many chandeliers we saw, and I enjoyed her enthusiasm. I bought two pins for myself, one of Link in the style of the old NES game manuals, and a bottlecap pin I thought was cool. I also bought one for Lauren, a tiny lipstick. All of the shopkeepers were very kind, and are clearly used to tourists, though we did both practice some of our French. Lauren and her fiance are doing an intensive French class while they're here, which I think is so wonderful. It's a little out of my price range while I'm not working, but I can't remember the last time I was so interested in the idea of a class. Espcecially since there's very little homework.
One place I especially want to mention is a huge vintage/antique clothing store on the second floor of one of the indoor-ish markets. It was staffed by a man in a Napoleonic-era soldier's uniform and a statuesque woman dressed like an Art Deco Vogue cover illustration. You weren't allowed to touch much, but they had tons of undergarments from a variety of eras - corsets, bustiers, girdles - that I know would give some of my friends fits to see. There were beautiful jackets over on the men's side, and so much more that I was honestly too intimidated to approach.
(Remember when I told my parents I would call them at 4? Haha neither did I until about 2. I texted Beck to see if he would be willing to proxy for me, and he did. He spoke with them for 17 minutes, where my later phone call with them was more like six. Ah well, good that they like him!)
After a couple hours of enchanted browsing, we found me a kebab sandwich and we were able to catch up with a little more focus. Conversations inside the markets were frequently interrupted by "oh, look over there" and "pardonnez-moi," making it difficult to hold onto threads. Lauren had some local queer info to share with me, and we talked about a lot of things. I was very grateful that she had invited me out, and I felt revitalized (if footsore) by the time we wandered out of the market's limits. In fact, we wandered outside the city limits. Les Puces are juuuust at the border of Paris, and walking just a few blocks had taken us into the suburbs. We sat in a park and discussed the future, and how to share happiness and excitement without guilt when the world is in such a dark place. And then we found our way back to the Metro - fortunately, Lauren is a better navigator than I am. And before parting ways, we agreed to plan another meeting with our partners in tow. What a pleasurable outing this was!
Pictures, I hear you demanding. Photos! Well, I didn't take any pictures of anything. Not one single picture all day. Many places had signs precluding photography, and I didn't feel up to asking for permission in the others. So I just tucked the memories away for myself. Sorry, you'll just have to visit! Or maybe next time I will feel emboldened - because I absolutely must visit this place again with Beck. He will like it as much as I do, if not more.
When I got home, I took a short walk with Beck, after which he rubbed my tired feet. I called my parents (who are enjoying the weather down the shore). We played a new Alice-themed card game called Parade. I trounced him in the first round, and he won the next two. He made some potatoes for dinner to go with the leftover lentils, and I threw a simple salad together. We started a game of Scrabble over the meal, but grew tired before we could finish. It felt nice to be able to leave the game unfinished overnight.
