Darcy's Paris Blog

Shopping and night out on the town

Today I slept in a bit, then got up and walked from my house to Opera to do some solo shopping before meeting up with Averill. (I've decided I need more clothes and shoes that don't require heels for walking around the city, and I'd rather do that solo.) The walk took about 45 minutes, but it was a nice day and probably as fast as the metro. On my way down I realized that you can see the Eiffel Tower from my street, if you walk down past a bend in the road. I took a picture, but not sure if it'll come out well.

I decided, too, that I prefer boutiques here to department stores. The department stores are huge here. I went into Printemps and couldn't take it -- picture a store that's as big as Foley's or Dillard's at home that's just dedicated to women's clothing -- and another one next door for men's, another for home, and another for beauty. Too much!

Met up with Averill for lunch and went to Galeries Lafayette, another department store he wanted to check out. Turns out this one's bigger than Printemps, so my button was goin' off after not too long of following him around to look at shoes and dress shirts. So I took off to do a few errands of my own, and we agreed to meet up later.

Headed down to Champs-Elysees, where I needed to return to the shop that gave me a non-working apartment key copy. I was there about when I was there last week, but they were closed -- that was the one thing I wanted to do today, so I don't waste the 30 euro it cost to have the guy hand-machine it -- but oh, well, I'll deal with that later.

Went across to a couple of shops near Odeon, where I'd seen some flat shoes I liked. Picked up two cheap pairs that are comfy, cute, and cheap enough to where I won't care when I destroy them from walking around too much. (Anything nice here I'd destroy promptly.) On the way home I got a call from Loic inviting me to a pre-party at Cyrille's -- these guys apparently hang out a lot, and it's really nice of them to include me. But since I was meeting Averill later, I decided I needed some down-time in-between.

Met up with Averill for dinner near my place. He was 25 minutes late, and since we'd agreed to meet on a street corner, I'm pretty sure a few people thought I was a hooker. (At least that's my impression from one or two looks and kind words yelled at me...) Indian food, then coffee, then Averill went home and i went to meet Loic, Cyrille, and the rest of their group.

The place where we met up was hysterical. It's called Elysees Montmarte, and it looks like it's in an old theater. There was a huge line out the door, which I would probably never tolerate in Austin but is a fact of nightlife in a big city, I guess. The place inside was kinda like Poly Esther's music meets Vaudeville decor. There was a balcony at one end with a bar underneath it, and a stage on the other side. When we arrived (after midnight at this point) they were playing strictly '70's disco music, then they moved to '80's for a bit, and that's when it got interesting. About 1:30ish, I think, a band came out (see picture) and started doing sock-hop stuff from the '50's. Everybody was going nuts over it, too, which I thought was hysterical. (A girl in our group told me it's the same formula everywhere in France -- '70's, then '80s, then this, etc.) Then they launched into all this old French music, complete with guy on the accordion. Everybody's singing at the top of their lungs, swaying back and forth -- it was totally random after the early selections. It struck me that you would probably never find that combination at home, like disco + Harry Mancini or something. Weird. It got a little better, though, when they launched back into the '70's. Much more fun. But by 2:30 or 2:45, after I'd danced a bit, gotten stepped on, had a beer poured on me, and lost my friends, I figured I'd had a full night and it was time to go home.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/darcydement/date-taken-calendar/

posted by Darcy @ 11:41 PM