dim. 12 août

I've been in France five days now, and have seen quite a lot!  The first day in the city I did the obligatory visit to Tour L'Eiffel and saw the Place de la Concorde.  The second visit into the city, J, took me to the market in Belleville.....


Belleville was a very interesting place.  It was much more culturally diverse than where I live in Boulogne and other parts of Paris.  I saw some gypsies at the Eiffel Tower the day before, but that morning we walked by a family sleeping on two mattresses on the street. Yikes!

The market was huge!  For awhile it seemed never ending with every kind of fruit and vegetable (including okra!) you could imagine and more.  But I would never go here by myself.  Apparently, I kept getting hit on by the vendors... they would say something in French, and I would just giggle nervously.. and say..."ouhh... merci?.."  At one stall, a guy said something to me and J said to him, "Non!"  The man had asked me to come behind the stall with him.  Obviously I look extremely American.    And dumb.  

The best part about the market is that you really can just taste whatever you want.  Not sure if that mango is ripe enough?  Here!  Goûter!  And most of the time they are handing out samples to entice you to buy something.  After walking down the whole stretch we decided on cherries, strawberries, cherry tomatoes and something called "pêche plat."    Now, as someone who considers herself an expert on peaches, I wasn't really buying it when J told me they were amazing.  But... yowza, I don't know where these peaches come from, but they are my new favorite fruit.  

After we left the market, we walked to a park called Buttes Chaumont.  On the way there a very old man walked right up to me and J and started talking in French, which I didn't understand a word of... J just replied, "merci, merci..."  When we walked away, J told me that he said, "your wife has a great shape!"  Nothing like a Latin culture to boost your confidence...  Bon.  Here are some other pictures of the market...

Today we went to Montmartre to the Sacre Coeur and then after lunch to Versailles.  I didn't take pictures in Montmartre because there were tourists everywhere.  I think the only French I heard was from my host parents... Versailles was grand, but I'm too tired to load those up... next time!