Having Our Baguette and Eating It Too
The baguette even tastes good in the ghetto in France.How do I know? I just visited it and we had to go into the bakery so that I could change my red wedges into less conspicuous black flip-flops for our personal safety.
We had proclaimed today Marie Antoinette day, and first on our list of Marie Antoinette-themed activities was going to the French flea market to buy gaudy French jewelry. We should have known during our first metro journey at seven this morning that we weren't going to a safe area when we were chatted up (?)/harassed by the guy who kept elbowing my cousin's neck on the subway. Yet, we persisted, and we got out of the metro and went in search of the flea market I had discovered on the Internet whose existence we thought had been confirmed by June's edition of Vogue UK.
Upon emerging from the subway, we knew immediately that the area was dodgy and not in an "I like on the Cowgate and there are lots of trash bars" sort of dodgy so much as a "lets get out of here before we're raped and stabbed" type. I'd liked to have taken a photo to demonstrate the severe degree of sketchiness, but I didn't want to be raped, stabbed, AND mugged all before 9:00am, so I went with my instincts and left the camera in the my bag.
We had some difficulty finding the flea market in spite of signs, directions from a helpful baker woman, and every instinct in bout of us screaming "TURN BACK AROUND." But, I can be rather stubborn and sometimes I'd rather risk death than admit defeat and deprivation of old French costume jewelry. So, we walked on, down through the market which, to our knowledge, only sold 10 euro label-less t-shirts, 3 euro shoes, and batteries. All the while, shady Frenchmen greet us ("bonjour les filles"), hit on us (something to the effect of "you are so beautiful you give me pleasure early this morning") and hissed at us (which we thought was French cat-calling, but in light of later events, was perhaps, not). Yet, we continued, for while we had found A flea market (of sorts) we had not found THE flea market for which we had been searching, and we didn't wake up at 6:00am for nothing, goddammit! Thus, Vogue spurred us farther into the ghetto. It was at this point that for safety's sake, we stopped in a bakery for baguette and a shoe swap. The bakery was next to a McDonalds in which we were tempted to go for comfort hash browns, but we decided (rightfully) that going in would not be a good idea at all. For, we stood out as young people, as females, as comparatively affluent, but most dangerously (we believe) as Americans, and I think that had we, in that neighborhood in France gone into The Accursed American Food Chain (empty except for one cashier) we'd probably have been sold into white slavery. So, baguette in hand, subway in sight, we decided to leave, but not before one last ghetto-dwelling Frenchman shouted "les filles!" chasing after us, and spat in our American dust as we disappeared into the metro. On the map underground, we found the street to which we thought Vogue might be directing us, and half of me wanted to stick to her guns; she wanted to go back above ground and brave one more shot at the prospect of French costume jewelry, but the other half (as well as my travel-companion-cousine) knew that she had just had spit flung her direction and that the best idea would be to hightail her fat, white American ass out of those shady suburbs. And so, we whisked ourselves off to our next AntoinActivity: Versailles, which in spite of many warnings to be wary of pickpockets, was much less dubious than our prior venture. And while we never did get any costume jewelry, the day did come around full circle, and we ended it with coffee at McDonald's for hilarity's sake, and a screening of Sofia Coppola's FABULOUS Marie Antoinette. Through the film we discovered that, while our theme of gaudiness may have been foiled, we had eaten pastry all day just like Marie, and that was theme enough.
We had proclaimed today Marie Antoinette day, and first on our list of Marie Antoinette-themed activities was going to the French flea market to buy gaudy French jewelry. We should have known during our first metro journey at seven this morning that we weren't going to a safe area when we were chatted up (?)/harassed by the guy who kept elbowing my cousin's neck on the subway. Yet, we persisted, and we got out of the metro and went in search of the flea market I had discovered on the Internet whose existence we thought had been confirmed by June's edition of Vogue UK.
Upon emerging from the subway, we knew immediately that the area was dodgy and not in an "I like on the Cowgate and there are lots of trash bars" sort of dodgy so much as a "lets get out of here before we're raped and stabbed" type. I'd liked to have taken a photo to demonstrate the severe degree of sketchiness, but I didn't want to be raped, stabbed, AND mugged all before 9:00am, so I went with my instincts and left the camera in the my bag.
We had some difficulty finding the flea market in spite of signs, directions from a helpful baker woman, and every instinct in bout of us screaming "TURN BACK AROUND." But, I can be rather stubborn and sometimes I'd rather risk death than admit defeat and deprivation of old French costume jewelry. So, we walked on, down through the market which, to our knowledge, only sold 10 euro label-less t-shirts, 3 euro shoes, and batteries. All the while, shady Frenchmen greet us ("bonjour les filles"), hit on us (something to the effect of "you are so beautiful you give me pleasure early this morning") and hissed at us (which we thought was French cat-calling, but in light of later events, was perhaps, not). Yet, we continued, for while we had found A flea market (of sorts) we had not found THE flea market for which we had been searching, and we didn't wake up at 6:00am for nothing, goddammit! Thus, Vogue spurred us farther into the ghetto. It was at this point that for safety's sake, we stopped in a bakery for baguette and a shoe swap. The bakery was next to a McDonalds in which we were tempted to go for comfort hash browns, but we decided (rightfully) that going in would not be a good idea at all. For, we stood out as young people, as females, as comparatively affluent, but most dangerously (we believe) as Americans, and I think that had we, in that neighborhood in France gone into The Accursed American Food Chain (empty except for one cashier) we'd probably have been sold into white slavery. So, baguette in hand, subway in sight, we decided to leave, but not before one last ghetto-dwelling Frenchman shouted "les filles!" chasing after us, and spat in our American dust as we disappeared into the metro. On the map underground, we found the street to which we thought Vogue might be directing us, and half of me wanted to stick to her guns; she wanted to go back above ground and brave one more shot at the prospect of French costume jewelry, but the other half (as well as my travel-companion-cousine) knew that she had just had spit flung her direction and that the best idea would be to hightail her fat, white American ass out of those shady suburbs. And so, we whisked ourselves off to our next AntoinActivity: Versailles, which in spite of many warnings to be wary of pickpockets, was much less dubious than our prior venture. And while we never did get any costume jewelry, the day did come around full circle, and we ended it with coffee at McDonald's for hilarity's sake, and a screening of Sofia Coppola's FABULOUS Marie Antoinette. Through the film we discovered that, while our theme of gaudiness may have been foiled, we had eaten pastry all day just like Marie, and that was theme enough.