On a Spree

For my second to last day in Paris, I decided to spend my time walking around, looking for stores to shop in. At first Paris seemingly did not have a bunch of places for me to throw my money at, unlike Italy, where I couldn’t walk down a street without seeing something in a window display that I wanted to own.

Everything seemed not quite right and with the kind of money they were asking for, everything had to be pretty right. I popped into a few jewelry stores, trying on crystal chokers and listening to the shop girls tell me how each choker worked with my hair. It was the kind of Paris shopping spree I had dreamed about when I was a little girl, twirling in front of my mirror in a tutu and fairy wings. 

Sometime after lunch, I found a place called Free “P” Star, a reasonably-priced second hand store wedged between the high-toned shops of the Marais. This interestingly named clothing store is a definite young people’s shop, with its neon lighting and pop music blaring over the air waves. It could rival Abercrombie and Fitch for its headache-inducing medley of unnecessarily loud music and bizarre lighting that makes it difficult to see the clothes that you’re buying.  

All of the clothes were inexpensive but trendy, the kind of outfits that you would wear on a night out. I walked away with a vinyl jacket, a red velvet jacket, and a pair of black velvet pants. 

For dinner, Claire and I went to “Red Poppy,” a tapas bar in Paris’s Chinatown district. The place is adorned with paper lanterns, graffiti-style murals, and hand drawn menus with cocktails ranging from light to heavy. 

So far I have been to a bunch of art museums, seen the Palace of Versailles, visited Notre Dame Cathedral, walked through Pere Lachaise Cemetery and, now, I had just had a day of checking out cool secondhand shops and even cooler bars. My trip to Paris was exceeding all expectations. 

After drinking a few cocktails on the heavier side of the menu, we called it a night. I went to bed and got ready for my last day in Paris. 

The Tragic Queen,

Raquel

P.S.: Check out my previous blog post about my trip to The Palace of Versailles