I’ve been incredibly slow on updating this. Since my last post, I went to meet my long-lost German family in Oldenburg, went to Berlin, had an amazing time at both places, and spent over 24 hours on a bus due to highways being inexplicably closed and also a soccer game that meant that beer bikes were the main form of transportation in Berlin on the day that I left. Any other day I would have been thrilled. On this one, not so much.
I also started a new job at the CRIPS (Centre regionale pour l’information-prevention du sida), which I can talk about more in a later post; turned 21 in Europe, which was an amazing experience; finally welcomed summer and promptly realized I had no appropriate summer clothes; and checked several more things off of my to-do list. It’s been a good summer so far.
Last Sunday no one wanted to go to the Marche des Puces with me — the largest, oldest flea market in Paris — so I naturally just went by myself. This market is in and of itself a neighborhood, with allees and boulevards, and indeed takes up the space of an entire quartier. These are some of the things I found there.
1. Boxes upon boxes of door handles. No doors, and some of them were even seemingly unattachable to doors, but, y’know, if you ever need one.
2. An entire alley devoted to china shops, apparently unironically next to a store selling matador capes and spears.
3. Stores that only sell buttons and lace.
4. A life-size bronze statue of a woman in the middle of childbirth, with the child emerging from her womb. The store also sold rugs.
5. A KFC.
6. A magazine from the 1940s entitled “Les dessous de la politique americaine” about secret governmental spies. The more things change…
7. A book wistfully called “L’homme que j’etais pour toi.” (The Man that I Was for You.)
8. An old man in a suit who looked eerily like a well-dressed Yoda.
9. An amazing store called Falbalas that specialized in vintage wear from the mid 1800s up to the 70s, and
10. The best cancan dress I have ever seen/needed. I might even go back and get it. If you can’t come back with an actual cancan dress from France, what have you really done?
11. An inexplicable amount of doll bodies just lying around. No heads and no clothing, just every so often you’d see one prone on a chair.
12. A woman named Marlene singing Edith Piaf with more heart than tone in Chez Louisette, the greatest little raucous restaurant hidden deep within the maze.
13. A live duck.
14. The place from Midnight in Paris when they’re in the Puces. (Eeeee!)
15. Signed lithographs by people whom I would probably know if I knew anything about lithographs.
16. An inexplicably large amount of vintage ads about lingerie, perfume, and women’s clothing, and a shockingly disappointing lack of ones about vintage cars. One Renault ad does not cut it, mon ami.
17. An exhibition called Death Dancing, with real skeletons dressed to the nines, just chillin in the middle.
18. A box full of old medicine bottles, with the medicine still in them.
19. A hand-drawn map in crayon of a child’s neighborhood casually nestled in with other maps of things like Algeria, and the world as seen in the 1800s. It was also 10 euros.
20. An entire shop of swords, knives, daggers, and other things that my brother would sell me to Egyptian traders for.
21. Seven old men sitting in a row patiently waiting their turn to play petanque in the garden just outside one of the markets.
22. Coffee for 1 euro (and coffee for 12 euros).
23. A store devoted to keychains.
24. A lost child, whom I helped return to his parents.
25. The Metro, after about a 15 minute, increasingly panicked search, since St Ouen is not where you want to be at night or even close to it.
I wish I had pictures, but I’m hoping to go back next weekend with a friend. Maybe I’ll come away with a cancan dress 😉
Emily Wolfteich 