Galeries Lafayette

Those of you who know me may know that I detest shopping. I specifically detest shopping at "the mall." Therefore it may surprise you to know that I actually had a fairly nice shopping experience last Saturday at Galeries Lafayette, one of the busiest and most famous shopping centers in Paris, on one of the busiest days of the year.

I arrived at around 3PM and was shocked to see the number of people waiting to get into the store: I had to wait for 10 minutes in line just to get in! Fortunately, however, it got more manageable once I made it inside, and I managed to find gifts for most of the French people on my list. A highlight of the shopping day was just after sunset when I walked out to the balcony to check out the lights display (left) draping the facade of the building, which is just next to the even-more-impressive Paris Opera house.

French expression of the Day: "avoir un poil dans la main", which literally means "to have a hair in one's hand", which means that somebody is lazy. (e.g., Mon ami a un poil dans la main = my friend is lazy.) Apparently, if somebody is REALLY lazy, you change the expression to "avoir un baobab dans la main" (to have a baobab tree in one's hand, which makes absolutely no friggin' sense to me whatsoever, but there you have it).