It's almost Halloween. Every storefront is decked out with orange and black; people are choosing costumes from the various shops that have mysteriously cropped up out of nowhere; spooky things keep happening more often than you'd like. This is the American Halloween we all know and love so much. And honestly, who wouldn't enjoy a little extra consumerism (we all buy the costumes, candy and decorations, right)? To put things into perspective: in France, you would almost not realize it's Halloween! Sure, the kids dressed up at school. But not so many people buy candy or get pumped like they do in the States (if my facebook feed is any indication, that is). You might say: "Oh, that's a good thing!" And it is. Unless you're me, and you want to relive your childhood by eating too much chocolate and dressing up as your favorite Princess (I had a home-made Ariel costume as a kid once).
You can see by the picture above (and the ones below) that I stumbled upon a storefront decked out in full-on Halloween stuff. And by stuff, I mean chocolate!!!
Nom nom nom! I didn't buy any, but I went crazy taking these pictures (and apparently, you can get in trouble for doing that because you might "copy" their products). I guess Halloween this year will consist of me having a delicious glass of red wine (should I pretend it's blood?) and eating some good chocolate (perhaps chocolate ice cream).
Now for a completely different subject: street markets in France! Everything in France is expensive, except for their wine and bread. So when the street markets start up, the people flock to buy the cheap things. I was passing through one of these over the weekend and had to stop to take this picture:
A bunch of low-cost bras that you can buy on the street? Maybe it seemed weirder at the time, but I was quite intrigued that anyone would just want to stop and buy them. I don't know...
To the left is a picture of a selection of typical French meet: saucisson! This means dried sausage. It's not refrigerated (nor are the legs of some unknown animal that are hanging to the right of the picture). Saucisson is actually delicious, and I think the use of salt acts as a preservative for all this dried meat (correct me if I'm wrong). So it's actually healthier for you than all those fake preservatives (except that salt is actually really bad for you... but every French person I know uses more salt on their food than any American I know, would you believe that!). I can't bring myself to enter the actual fresh meat (or fresh fish) markets. It just smells sooooo bad. Maybe I will find the courage to venture into one so I can take some pictures. Americans certainly clean the heck out of their food (to the point of unhealthiness, perhaps?), and so it makes the natural style of preparing and selling fresh meat very gross for us. This is definitely a bad thing. I wish I could handle the smell, but the few times I've tried, I've had to run out with my hand over my mouth.
À bientôt!
No comments:
Post a Comment