The Paris Chronicles: pt. 2, Shopping

This post will be a summary of shopping in Paris. I’m not an expert by any means, but I did buy things, so I have a bit of experience. This is mostly for touristy stuff (t shirts, key chains, mugs, etc.); I didn’t do much clothes shopping.

First things first: don’t buy things under the Eiffel Tower. There’s a couple of shops under there and they all have expensive touristy things. There’s also a little stand thing near a corner before you go under, and I’d recommend not buying anything there either. My brother and I got cheated.

So everything was fairly expensive, like I expected, so I wasn’t that put off. The cheapest things at the stand that I just mentioned were key chains for 1.50 (euros). We thought, wow, what a good deal compared to the rest of this stuff. Then I bought a pocket mirror for 10 euros because I thought it was really cute. After walking around under the Tower and then going to cross the street to get a better view, we were approached by guys selling stuff. Their arms were full of key chains and model Eiffel Towers. We automatically said no and kept walking, but as we got closer to crossing the street we actually heard what one of them said: “3 for 1 euro.”

My brother and I both paused and said, “Wait, what?” We went back and bought more key chains. It was then that we realized we had been cheated. By the end of the day those guys were selling 10 key chains for 2 euros—and we had spent 1.50 for one! So if you see a bunch of guys (mostly African) with tons of merchandise in their arms, go to them. Their prices are cheaper, and you can bargain. Across the street there were men sitting on the ground with displays of what they were selling, and they had a bit more than the guys directly under the Tower. I got a little glass figurine of the Eiffel Tower. Actually, it’s one of those figures with the image inside a glass square thing. I don’t know what they’re called, but I love them, so I got one. They wanted it for 6, I paid 3.

Don’t know how to bargain? Never fear. I already had experience having been to Ghana before, so I consider myself something of a pro. *Brushes shoulders off* First thing is, be willing to spend a minute or two talking to the seller. Whatever the original price is, you can bring it down. There are a few exceptions, like with the key chains I said before. 3 for 1 is a good deal; asking any lower is just being stingy. I don’t know, just use common sense. Think about what price you want to pay, think about whether it’s reasonable, and then ask that price.

This is an example scenario (if the grammar seems bad it’s because that’s how they talk):

Shopper: Ooh, this is nice.

Seller: Oh yes, *insert description of whatever it does/looks like here*

Shopper: How much is it?

Seller: 6 euro.

Shopper: Oh…

Seller: No, it’s okay! Tell me how much you want to pay.

Shopper: 3.

Seller: Oh no, that’s too low. Okay, okay, 5.

Shopper: I don’t think it’s worth more than 3.

Seller: Come on, 5, is good deal.

Shopper: Mm, no thanks.

Seller: Wait, okay, 4.

Shopper: Mm…nah, no thanks. *start to walk off*

Seller: Okay, okay. *nods head, extends hand for money*

Whenever they do that I always confirm the end price. So in that case I would say, “3 euro, right?” and then they would nod. I always do that because once I went through this whole thing and at the end the guy acted like we had come to the conclusion he wanted. Always confirm.

The walking off thing makes them desperate. It’s like, oh no, I’m losing a potential buyer. I think the starting price they offer is usually high because there’s always that one person who goes, “Oh, whatever,” and pays for it without bartering. But you can bring it down. It might take a little longer than the scenario I gave you, or it might not. It all depends. If you’re willing to spend 5 minutes you could probably get it down a lot, but it takes time.

Now, this ONLY APPLIES to the people you see on the street. Don’t try it with someone in a shop. Regular rules apply there.

For regular touristy stores, be sure to shop around. That mirror I spent 10 euros on? I found similar ones in a shop that were selling 3 for 10. I felt dumb. (Just a side note here, it’s not like I spend tons of time looking in mirrors. I’ve just never had a pocket mirror and I’ve actually started looking for one recently and haven’t been able to find one, so when I saw it I thought it was my lucky day and decided to buy it, despite the ridiculous price.)

So remember, if you see something in one tourist shop, it’ll be in another, and it might be cheaper. There’s tons of shops, and a lot of them are close together, so don’t worry about not finding whatever you’re looking for again.

They sold a lot of scarves along the streets too. Scarves, hats, gloves, and some purses. If you cross the street at the Eiffel Tower to that…museum/building place (I don’t actually know what it is) and you go up the stairs, there’s guys up there selling purses on the ground as well. They weren’t knock offs, they were just regular purses. I’m not a name brand person so it didn’t bother me. If you’re looking for Prada or Louis Vuitton or whatever then you’d have to go to a regular store. Champs d’Elysees has tons of rich stores so if you want to spend some hardcore money, go there and walk up and down. There’s a giant Louis Vuitton there. There’s some regular stores there too, so non-rich people can find some stuff as well.

We did go into some normal clothing places too. I got some boots. By the way:

BritBit 1: Girls love boots. I don’t know why, but it seems like every single girl has boots here, and it’s annoying. Seeing a girl in sneakers is rare. If she’s wearing sneakers she’s probably also wearing a punk sort of outfit, or a…I don’t know what the word is. Skater, maybe. I guess the only reason it’s annoying is because everyone looks exactly the same: shirt, leggings/tights, boots. Leggings have taken over.

BritBit 2: They wear shorts with tights. I’m used to it by now, but when I first arrived I thought it was strange. They even do it in the winter. As in 30 degrees outside (Fahrenheit). How can people stand the cold?

Anyway, French stores are just the same as other stores. You don’t really need to know French to buy anything. Like I said in my last post, I bought some earrings in another store and it was fine. No advice needed here.

Okay, so that’s my overview of shopping in Paris. I’ll post again soon talking about…something French. I haven’t decided yet. Au revoir!

The Paris Chronicles: pt. 1

…Wow. I have a ton to report.

I’m going to be posting several times over the next few days. Remember last post when I said I had the feeling I would be posting more often, or something like that? I actually have more to post than I thought, due to the failure of Eurostar.

So my brother came to visit. We were planning to go to both London and Paris. Guess what happened the first night? It snowed. A lot. We were supposed to go to London the next day, a Friday.

The buses into the city were all cancelled, so I had to reschedule the bus for the next day. That worked out, I guess.

But then guess what happened? We made our way to London on Sunday to go to Paris. We got up at 5 in the morning, arrived, and were told that all the trains were cancelled due to bad weather. The security guy actually said something about condensation, but I couldn’t understand his thick French accent so I’m not sure what that means. All I know is, the train was cancelled, and I was out of a lot of money: the train, the hostel, the bus to London—that all costs money, and it was all down the drain. Needless to say I was not pleased.

The train was also cancelled on Monday. Sarkozy finally got involved—he ordered that the trains resume on Tuesday. They were all reserved for people who didn’t get to travel on Sunday and Monday, so my brother and I decided to try and go again. That time, it worked. Instead of going by time they just stuck people on the next available train.

So we FINALLY made it to Paris. Overall grade: C-. I wasn’t impressed to be honest. First of all, it was overcast. Second, when we got there on the first day it was already dark, so we didn’t do anything except go to the hotel. Speaking of which, I still had to pay for the first night at the other hostel I booked. Thanks Eurostar.

We went to Champs d’Elysees the second day. Unfortunately we went down the wrong way so we didn’t go to many shops, because there weren’t many around. I fail at directions. We also got lost on the way to the hotel the night before. My mistake.

We then walked to the Eiffel Tower. The top half was covered in fog but later it cleared up and the sun came out. There were these hardcore armed guards there patrolling the place. There were also some pigs towards the middle with a sign close by, but since I don’t read French I have no idea what they were doing there. We also got cheated on some souvenirs, but I’ll mention that another day.

The city is kind of gross. There’s spit all over the ground and we saw a guy peeing in the street the first night. Charming. Plus my tickets for the underground didn’t work several times, and I had to get someone to open those doors that are attached to the machines you stick the tickets in to go through. I’m not sure if there’s an actual word for that.

We also saw the Louvre. The Louvre is a nightmare. If you ever plan on going and you want to see the Mona Lisa, do that first. The museum is huge. I mean, I knew it was big, but I didn’t realize it was so big that the map didn’t even make sense. There were two drawings for the same floor…I think. Basically, we got lost inside, and by the time we asked someone where the Mona Lisa was we were already tired, and then it took another…I’m guessing 15 minutes to find it. The museum, I reiterate, is HUGE. Plus it was far away, you couldn’t walk right up to it. There was a rope that designated how close you could get to it, and there was a crowd around it. Plus the painting was protected by glass. I can’t help but think that the painting is difficult to locate because they don’t want it to be easy to find for anyone trying to steal it.

After that we got something to eat and then went to Notre Dame. This sounds silly, but it looked bigger in the Disney movie. I love that movie by the way. Hellfire? One of Disney’s best songs.

Anyway, it was nice looking inside. I liked the windows. Honestly though, it was kind of…I’m not sure what the word is. I don’t want to say creepy, I just got an odd feeling while in there.

Afterwards we wandered around some more. We went into some shops to find stuff for family members back home. I got a bunch of stuff for myself too. I’ll go into that on another day as well.

The next day we went back to Champs d’Elysees and went in the right direction. There’s tons of shops there. The Arc de Triomphe sits at the end, which is pretty cool because we hadn’t even realized it at the time. It was...tall. I'm not sure what else to say about it. I wanted to visit Sacre Couer or however you spell it, but we were out of time. We rushed back to Gare du Nord and caught the Eurostar back to London. As it is, we could have stayed longer because we got back two hours or so early for the bus back to Brighton. Oh well.

So! Stuff about France:

1. Everyone speaks French. Duh. All the signs and everything are in French.
2. Some people speak English as well. It’s actually not that hard to get around without knowing French. I bought a pair of earrings at this store and the cashier didn’t speak English. She tried to tell me that I couldn’t return them, but she only knew a bit of English so it just came out as, “No…change,” with a lot of gestures towards the earrings. I figured it out eventually and we laughed about it so it was no big deal.
3. It reminds both me and my brother of New York. I hate New York.
4. They really do have snails on the menus at restaurants. My brother got frog legs on the first night. They weren’t that good, but only because they weren’t seasoned. I’ve had them before and they can be delicious if cooked properly.

I don’t know what else to say. I think you can leave comments, right? If anyone reading this has a question, just leave a comment.

I’ll end here. I’ll try to post again tomorrow and talk about buying things in Paris. Fun stuff.

P.S. I look really young in that picture next to the pyramid...ugh. I just turned 20 (happy birthday to me!). I'm told I will like this "looking young" thing in the future. Is the future here yet?

Some quick BritBits

Time for another update!

I went to get my hair done today (braids, if you care) and I learned a bit more about British speech. Well, I knew these things, but I had forgotten about them, so it was a little refresher.

BritBit one: British people pronounce the beginning of some words with an ‘f’ even though there is no ‘f’ there. For instance, they’ll say what sounds like “froo” when they’re saying “through”. They do it in other instances but I can’t think of any other examples right now.

BritBit two: Just a bit of slang—“bang out of order”. It basically means someone has done something wrong, or said/done something uncalled for. If you’ve seen the Harry Potter movies (woot!) in the fifth one Ron says to Harry, “Seamus was bang out of order mate,” after Seamus had accused Harry of lying about Voldemort being back and said something about his mom nearly not letting him come back to Hogwarts. If you didn’t understand any of that you need to pick up a Harry Potter book ASAP. Here’s another example for you: If you’re having an argument with a friend and you snap and call them…I don’t know, a slut, they might gasp and say, “That’s out of order.”

BritBit three: I can’t remember if I’ve written this already (story of my life) but they call a five pound note a “fiver” or a ten pound note a “tenner”. It’s shorter, it’s easier, it makes sense.

That’s all for today. I get the feeling I’ll have a lot more to write about in the upcoming days…muahaha cliffhanger.

Bye all!

Free at last, free at last...you know the rest

Sorry sorry sorry! I’m overdue, I know. But the good news is, the term is over! I’m free!

Let’s give a few quick updates: I had my band concert last night. It went really well, apparently the audience said it was the best the band has sounded in a while. This is my first term so I’ll just take their word for it.

I finished my two essays. Yay me.

I haven’t started editing my nano yet. Boo me.

That’s it for my personal life. Let’s move on to more interesting things.

BritBit numero uno: While at the concert they had little snacks for people to eat, including cookies (or should I say biscuits?), wine (it’s still weird for me that alcohol is not even a problem for college-age people), and these things called mince pies. Now I’d heard of mince pies before, but I had no idea what they were. I asked two girls sitting next to me and they had a difficult time explaining it, beyond saying that there were raisins and the pies are really sweet. So I tried one, and they were right. They do have raisins, and they are sweet. It’s like a mini pie with really sweet fruit filling. I didn’t like it. I’m not a fan of raisins.

But if you don’t like raisins, you must be thinking, then why did you try it at all if they said there were raisins in it? Well imaginary questioner, I just like to try stuff sometimes. It might’ve been so delicious that I didn’t mind the raisins. Unfortunately…it wasn’t.

BritBit numero dos: I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this (how many times have I said that? I can’t remember) but here they only go to school for three years. In the U.S. college is four years. Also, here “college” is like “high school” in the U.S…I think. So, if someone here says that they took maths in college they don’t mean university, they mean the equivalent of high school. Oh yeah, and they say “maths” not “math”.

BritBit three yo: I have no idea what a surgery is. I went to the pharmacy to get something and the ladies there mentioned going to the surgery. In the U.S. surgery is a procedure in which stuff gets cut up. And by “stuff” I mean your body, and by “cut up” I mean operated on. The first way was simpler.

Let me look it up now…okay I give up. I keep getting links for the actual practice of surgery, not what the UK version of the word means. Hm…it’s a mystery. I’m guessing it just means the doctor’s office, or the hospital.

BritBizzle number fizzle: Does parmesan cheese have to be refrigerated? I’m almost certain it doesn’t, but everywhere I look here it’s in the refrigerated section. This has nothing to do with England except for the fact that I discovered it here. How weird. England is challenging all of my previous beliefs about food.

Sidebar: Glee is the most amazing show ever. I say this now because the songs are stuck in my head and it’s hard to concentrate. If you have a TV, watch Glee. It’s on Fox. By the way, not a fan of Fox. They cancelled Firefly, and therefore they suck. What is Firefly? Watch it on hulu. If you’re not in the U.S. and therefore can’t watch it on hulu, buy it. It’s a sci-fi western. Yeah, that sounds weird and kind of stupid, and I was reluctant to watch it at first, but it’s amazing. The pilot starts off slow though, so be sure to stick to it. Also, they cancelled Dollhouse and it just started getting good. Fail.

I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be plugging these things. It’s not like I’m getting paid for it. *shifty eyes*

Seriously though, I’m not getting paid for it. I wish.

Well, I’m done for now. Also, my birthday is next week. I just realized that when I looked at the calendar on my wall ten seconds ago. I always forget about my birthday until a week or so beforehand. Weird. Anyway, you can send presents to University of Sussex room number…just kidding.

‘Til next time! Peace and love :)

Pssh. I thought you said it was a challenge.

50,020 words. I won. I’m awesome.

I’m talking about NaNoWriMo of course. I managed 50,020 words in 29 days. I could’ve added a thousand or two more if I had worked on the last day, but I decided to take a break. So I’m proud of myself. The novel isn’t actually finished, but I’m planning on finishing it this month and editing it in January. This is kind of unfortunate because it means I’m putting another project on hold, but I guess that’s what happens when you write five million things at once.

Well that was probably boring for anyone who isn’t me. Let’s move on to some BritBits because nothing else exciting has happened this week:

Elevators are called lifts. That’s a simple one.

The double decker buses are cool. I really want to go up on the second deck but so far I haven’t. I’m afraid of heights so I don’t know why I want to go up there, but I think it’d be fun.

Free range eggs are expensive. This isn’t really a BritBit because I think it applies everywhere, but it’s annoying. They were out of regular eggs and I didn’t feel like going back to the store later so I just bought them. Life shattering stuff, I know.

Have I mentioned the faucets? I hate the faucets. In the US there’s one faucet in the sink that runs both hot and cold water. Here there’s one faucet each for hot and cold water, which is terrible because when you wash your hands you either burn them or freeze them. I’ve yet to discover a way around this. It’s amazing what a little innovation can do. One single faucet eliminates that problem easily.

Cell phones are called mobiles. Another simple one.

It actually does rain a lot here. The past couple of weeks have been awful, raining nearly every day. Even if it starts out sunny, by the end of the day it’s raining again. Today was the nicest day in weeks. So the rainy England stereotype might be true. I wonder why it rains so much. Hm…

Um…that’s all I can think of right now. Sorry, I’m a bit preoccupied. I have two essays due next week, and I know that’s a horrible excuse and I hate when people use that excuse…but I have to. Duty calls.

I can’t believe it’s December already. It’s good because it means vacation is coming up, but the one bad thing is that essays are due. Oh well. One more week and I’m done until January. Awesomeness.

Later.