Soldissimes!

On our last full day in Paris, Sean took the girls to the Palais de la Découverte, the science museum while I went shopping. You'll find this is a common occurence for our family in various parts of the world - Sean and the girls have been to a lot of different science museums, and of course, I happily power shop for a few hours. If you want to get a detailed report on the museum, you'll have to talk to my family because I'm going to talk about shopping ;)

I started out at the local tea shop around the corner from our apartment, otherwise known as Mariage Freres, the world famous tea shop. There was an impressive selection of teas there. I bought a couple of beautiful containers and asked them to fill them with 100g of any special tea that was only available here in France. The gentleman recommended a Himalayan black which smelled lovely. Much to my surprise, when he handed me the ticket, it was 120 euros for 100g. That's 1,200 euros per kilo of this tea - approx $1,600! Now, I have pretty refined tastes when it comes to tea, but this I couldn't quite stomach. I had no shame - told him it was too expensive (bear in mind, the containers were already measured and filled!), and asked for a nice Earl Grey instead. The new total for my bill was MUCH better :)

I strolled over to Du Pareil au Meme, my favorite children's clothing store in Europe. I like the Rue St. Denis location since it's a really big branch. DPAM is probably the local equivalent of GAP Kids - normal prices (not your Jacardi or fancy kids' clothing store prices) but amazing style. I had already visited their stores in Avignon and Aix last week! There was a huge sale going on the Paris store - now the store is never terribly well-organized even at the best of times, but when there's a sale going on, it's complete mayhem. I spent an inordinate amount of time picking out things, and emerged much later with a huge bag of stuff. But think of the money I SAVED!! ;)

After DPAM, I had a decision to make: stroll over to Les Halles for the French equivalent of mall shopping? Or take the Metro over to Blvd Haussmann to Galeries Lafayette for the equivalent of shopping at Bloomingdale's? It was a tough choice but GL won out - the main store has a beautiful stained glass dome that I like to admire. I decided to grab a sandwich on the go so I wouldn't waste any valuable shopping time...

GL was also complete mayhem, which was surprising. Big sales going on - huge signs said Soldissimes everywhere. I had to buy a new duffle to hold all my DPAM purchases, and also once again, picked up another handbag for myself. This was a bit of a pricey proposition in the end. (I didn't feel too guilty about it until Sean reminded me that when we bought the new house last year, I had vowed not to buy any more designer purses for at least another year. Oops!)