From time to time Deb has had to take a day off and let her back recuperate, today was one of those days. So I was essentially on my own for the day. One thing that you can do in Paris almost every morning is go down to the perpetual flea market in Place d’Aligre. It’s located down close to Place Bastille and a fairly easy trip via the Metro. So I went down there to see if there were any treasures to be found. Over the years I’ve found some interesting things. One year I found two bicycling medals that had been given to actual competitors in the Tour de France. And from my point of view they were a steal. The last few years have seen something of a change, perhaps it’s because of winter, in that there are more sort of bulk sellers. They put their stuff out in boxes or just piled on tables and you have to sort through them and pick out things you may be interested in buying. When you show them what you have they give you a price. Then if you’re really interested you can haggle with them a bit. The problem I have with hunting this way is that I don’t want to waste time digging through 10 or 20 boxes of crap looking for some little thing and then have them set a ridiculous price on it. They didn’t care enough to display it properly, but once there is interest then it becomes a lost treasure. Plus I want to be able to look at every vendor before I’m done or the market closes. I will go here but I generally don’t have much confidence of finding anything.
I spent an hour or so perusing what was on offer and then focused on other things I wanted to get accomplished such as lunch. My hunt for a restaurant was really disjointed as well. I walked towards Bastille and stopped at a place I’ve eaten a few times before. But nothing on the menu appealed so I continued on. At Place Bastille I decided to walk up the main parkway towards Place de la Republique. Along the way I remembered another restaurant over by Place des Vosges, that we really liked. So I walked over there and went in, however they had a long wait to be seated so I skipped that one as well. I finally caught the Metro back to our neighborhood and ate at a little Tibetan Noodle Shop. I had a noodle bowl which was hot and filling but I neglected to take a photo. After eating I had to get down to my real tasks, first was to get a photo of Deb size adjusted so that we could activate her Metro pass and then I wanted to find a place that had bulk tea instead of teabags. Certainly there are now specialty tea stores that sell bulk tea but they are very expensive. Here’s where I betray my old grouch tendencies, we used to buy Kushmi tea in bulk directly from their little store up in the 8th arrondisement. Then tea became popular and suddenly there were Kushmi shops all over Paris and in the major department stores. It was reflected in the prices, way too expensive. Now they are in the major French cities as well, boo hoo. 😂
But I altered my buying habits and now I search out little ethnic supermarkets, Turkish, Chinese, or Indian and I buy bulk tea from them. It’s about a third the price of Kushmi or Marriage Freres and usually fresher. Today I had to get into the Indian neighborhood north of Gare du Nord to find my store but finally there it was and I got tea. It’s a brand that I have bought before so I’m pretty confident it will be decent and fresh. Of course I had to buy a half kilo, so that’s a bit of a drawback. Plus, I think the logo on their box is a perfect instance of Art Deco design from Ceylon. But on a cold winter day in Paris (or elsewhere) who wouldn’t love a steaming cup of Two Red Gazelles?
I’m hopeful that Deb will feel a little more rested tomorrow. Then we can pursue the interesting things that brought us back to Paris in the first place. Samuel Johnson (English dictionary) once said that “A man who is tired of London is tired of life”. My corollary is that “if you have a bucket list then Paris is a city with 10,000 buckets”
No comments:
Post a Comment