Soldes, soldes, soldes!

January 7th begins the twice annual shopping extravaganza in France. The January sales are known as, well, the January sales and occur over most of the month. Typically, French retailers don't discount a whole lot until these sales so when they do happen they are a big deal. Being proud Americans, we thought that there was no way they could fit what we have on Black Friday into a whole month.

We started the morning by a trip to the open air market in the 16th. We got a late start that morning and made it to the market around noon. Total amateurs. The party was shutting down when we arrived so we could only quickly stroll through the various stalls. We did grab a tasty lunch before it was all down. Jen had a Lebanese traditional pita sandwich and I bought some Paella. Since there wasn't really anywhere to eat our lunch, we strolled up the street a few blocks to Trocadero to sit on the steps and eat our lunch with a free view. After we filled up on lunch, we headed to the Galleries Layafette for some shopping. Galleries Lafayette is adjacent to the Old Opera and in the center part of the city just behind the Louvre. Think of it as a Nieman Marcus, only about 5 times larger and with a fancy grocery store in the center. Parts of the inside, like an ornate glass dome ceiling, look more like a work of art suited for the Opera across the street than a department store.

This is what the entrance looked like....

Both of us have been out the morning of Black Friday in the US and have never seen anything like this. You literally rubbed shoulders with people the whole time you were in the store. It was a little unsettling because people keep bumping into you. Old, young, big, small, men, women. At first I was a little annoyed that no one was saying "excusez moi", but then after I realized it wasn't personal felt liberated. I could bump into whoever I wanted and not have to worry about it at all. Since I'm a little bigger than most French, I didn't have much to worry about it and could block for Jen as she was looking for clothes.

After an hour of playing bumper cars and not finding any good "soldes", we opted to check out the fancy grocery store located in the middle of the 7 floors. It was really amazing and had several restaurants, cafes, prepared foods, fish market, butcher, baker, cheese shop and on and on. They also had a bump of super premium brands of various products from around the country. We couldn't resist and bought a variety of goodies to take home and try.

From left to right...Madarin Jasmin tea from 300 year old French East Indies company, two artisan mustards from Dijon region, hot chocolate mix from famous chocolate shop in Paris, bottle of Pinot Gris from Alsace, bottle of Pinor Noir from Provence area, Apricot jam from small French town in South, chocolate bars from another famous Parisian chocolatier and finally imported Columbian coffee roasted in France. These things weren't exactly on "soldes" either, but at least we'll have some great stuff to sample this week.