But It's The Life You Lead

Yesterday was our day for shopping. And while we didn't accomplish as much of that as we had planned, it was still another good day. We started off by hitting up the flea markets in a part of town we drove through in our taxi on our way from the airport. It was a place of character, my friends. We began in your typical flea market: souvenirs  clothing you would never buy, jewelry you sort of look through, odd trinkets from a random part of the globe, etc etc. After we tired of that, we stopped for a snack of french fries and hydration at a pizza restaurant and I embarrassingly ate twice as much as everyone.

Kelly was determined to find the flea market from Midnight in Paris, so we decided that was our next mission. We walked a few blocks and actually found it! It wasn't really a flea market so much as a lot of small shops selling vintage clothing and really, really odd furniture. It was so neat! I felt like I was in another world or at least another time. Something that I, and I think the other girls as well, really love about this trip is how different it is than your typical tourist trip. We enjoy more than just famous sights, we enjoy getting (the metro is always an adventure) there and the little incidents that happen and taking the time to do things like finding the flea market from a movie. That probably doesn't make a lot of sense, but I'm basically trying to say that I'm really tha)nkful to be here! Aaaaaaaaaanyway, back to the story of the day. We finished up there and started heading home when we made a stop in the leather jacket store for Kelly. Let me tell you, leather jacket stores are never to be taken lightly. Ale and I had a hilar time picking out things for ourselves. There were quite some hard choices to make! How do you choose between a magenta leather man jacket, tight leather pants and a sweet fur vest? You don't. The only reason we didn't buy anything was because we couldn't buy it all. Kelly, however, actually found something that she liked and got it.

Finally, we got back to the apartment to make a snack of chips and spinach dip (thank you, Eri and Ale) before (baha) going out to dinner. I wasn't feeling very well at all so I made sure to get some greens at the grocery store when we stopped there for spinach dip ingredients. The grocery store trips, believe it or not, always end up being a good time. This time, we got creeped on by the grocery bagger; he asked Ale for her name (duh, she said Kelly) and her age (she said 15...12...10. I'm 10).

The snack was a good one and held us over until dinner, which was yet another great time. We met up with Alvero, one of Ale and Erika's friends from their French class, at Notre Dame and all walked to this Mexican restuarant that Kelly's uncle recommended to us. Alvero. What a character. He is from Spain, but is staying here for the summer, and is a huge fan of all things Lady Gaga, Glee, Dexter, Kelly Clarkson and the Dixie Chicks. He really was so funny and interesting and nice. He told us about how he loves America and shared stories about his host families here in France and in Philadelphia. Needless to say, he made a great seventh member.

We ate dinner and went back to Notre Dame where we watched an entertaining (in many ways) number of street performers. We started at the fire baton twirler (what are they called, really?) who had almost setting a girl on fire (awkward) as part of his performance (it was one of those "member of the audience, please come up" moments). I did not enjoy this bit at all. Rather, I turned around and glanced over my shoulder to make sure he hadn't killed the innocent tourist girl on accident. Ale and I discussed for quite some time what his origin was. We decided he was Egyptian but went back and forth between that and Moroccan for a little bit. When he was done, a fun group of four young ghetto dancers were up for a turn. We decided they were extras from "Step Up 3-D." One of them was rather disturbing. He refused to walk upright and instead would hop around like a gorilla. WORSE, he went up to a fellow dancer and nuzzled her leg and she proceeded TO PET HIM. What? It was eerie, to say the least. We enjoyed their performance and proceeded on to the roller skaters. Their big trick was going really fast off a huge ramp and flying in the air over bars and then bystanders. Who was one of the chosen bystanders? Our one and only Amber. Laura got a picture of it all, so look forward to that.

It was then time for us to retire to the apartment for an early night in of cards and sleep!