nick was here: March 2010

The flea market comes to the lazy tourist

I had been too lazy to go out sightseeing as of late, my camera slowly collecting dust. But then the flea market ("la brocante" in French) came to my neighborhood this weekend. Two blocks on foot seemed reasonable, so I went out to check it out.

I take this street everyday to go to work, and it's usually remarkably boring. It was a nice change to see all these people buzzing around.

They had some pretty neat (and expensive) stuff, like silverware and rare antiques. Leave it to the French to give even flea markets a touch of class.

By the way, the guy on the left isn't mad at me. It's just that Parisians set their face on mean/frozen when they're out. I think it's a self-defense mechanism they came up with in order to fend off potential smalltalk or questions from tourists. Needless to say, it's highly effective.

A Russian encounter... in Paris

The Cold War between the US and the USSR ended back when I was in kindergarten, so the little I know about the Soviet world comes mostly from textbooks. Imagine my surprise when I found a stand dedicated exclusively to Soviet memorabilia.

The lady at the stand said everything was original 100% made in Russia. That rarely works as a sales pitch where I'm from.

I don't recall ever seeing anything even remotely related to the USSR back in LA, so I felt a bit awkward and out of place being surround by all these things that are supposedly "evil".

This guy seems to be having the time of his life however.

Most of the stuff seemed to have Lenin in it, from little portraits to statues to huge canvases.

Suddenly the fact that they've preserved his body for all these years doesn't sound too crazy.

Chinese stuff at "la brocante"

French people seem to be fascinated by Asian stuff. In Paris, you're rarely more than a block or two away from a Japanese or a Chinese restaurant.

The Asian stuff I found fell anywhere between the stereotypically Chinese...