Gypsies, Gold and Elephants

Paris Keepsake

*****SCAM ALERT****** yep they have scammers here in Paris!!! Its a pretty good scam too if you ask me. As we walked along the Seine on Monday we passed an older woman, maybe late 60's early 70's, all of a sudden she stops, bends down and picks up a gold ring. We are somewhat surprised by her find, she asks us in farely good English if it is ours and we immediately say "no, no, not ours". She then says to me as she grabs my hand, "I no need, I am divorced you take it as good luck here in Paris". She closes the ring into my hand and I stand there not sure what to do, so I say thank you and start to walk away...here is the scam. She then stops me and says, " a little something for coffee, for me?" Not knowing what the right thing is to do,I mean this lady just found a ring and gave it to me, I should give her something, right? So I hand her a Euro and walk away, she begs for more, I just keep walking trying to catch up with Laura and Tatum as they left me to deal with the gold ring. (I tend to always be the one that stops when approached on the street) To be honest I was a little paranoid, I thought what if I was supposed to give her more money and now someone is following us, it took me a good 30 minutes to get rid of the feeling. Laura and I wondered if we were scammed or what if it was a real gold ring - $$$$. Well my hopes of cashing in on the gold ring were squashed today as I read a blog and half way down the page it said ' watch out for the gold ring scam', dang it I was scammed! Today it was tried on us again but we were to smart, we just said no and kept on walking.

There are numerous "gypsies" on the streets of Paris, usually just sitting on a duffel bag, some have a pet like a dog or even a bunny, or some have a whole family cuddled up on a mattress. They dont say much, they usually have a paper cup out and sometimes you may hear them say something but its in French so we just keep walking. I guess I wasn't anticipating seeing homeless people here as it is Paris. 

Today was forecasted as rainy and gloomy but that wasn't going to stop us as we only have a week left and still so much to see. So we charted out our route to the Opera House and hoped the rain would hold off until later this afternoon, we had been pretty lucky with weather so far. We got a few blocks from our apartment when it started to rain, so we decided it was time to have our first cafe' at a cafe. We felt so Parisian having our croissant and cafe' and the cafe'' was so good, very smooth not acidic or bitter like our espressos tends to be. If you have every traveled with a child you know that what you have planned for the day is usually not what the child has planned. Tatum has been a trooper, she has her moments but that's to be expected. So to keep her interested in our outings we ask her what we should look for as we walk the city. Elephants, Russian baby dolls, kitties and doggies are the usual plus its not to hard to find a dog here in Paris, Russian baby dolls well...

So as we walk we look for the said items as it keeps her entertained while she is stroller contained. Poor girl, as it never fails falls asleep as we happen upon elephants ( her favorite animal by far) glass ones, painted ones, metal ones, elephants everywhere that is until she wakes up. So we have started taking pictures to prove to her that we did see her elephants.

Giant elephant in storefront window

One of our "must do" stops was at Angelina's. We were advised we had to have the worlds best hot chocolate so we found it and O.M.G. they were so right except its not hot chocolate its hot melted chocolate, a cup of hot steamy melted drinking chocolate. I literally saw stars as it was so rich and creamy and yummy, if you are ever in Paris you MUST make the stop (its across from the Louvre). 

My love for spicy food especially Mexican (okay addiction) has not fained. I knew coming to Europe I would be hard pressed to find Mexican food. So I tried some at Disneyland, first mistake, I found hot salsa and flour tortillas at the store this week and Mexican spiced chicken...whoot whoot we are having Mexican food for dinner kids, 2nd mistake. The chicken tasted more like Indian curry than Mexican, the tortillas were not that bad but a little thick and dry for my liking and the hot salsa...uggg was a jar of thick sweet ketchup. I doubt The Netherlands or Denmark will be of much hope. I may have to resort to straight shots of Sriracha sauce.

Rainy day random stop

Yummy cafe'

Croissant monster

Pure heaven

Hot steamy drinking chocolate

View from Pompidou

Pastry porn

Food Art

Yep a selfie

"big"bottles  of wine

Paris Opera Garnier

"Us"

Paris shopping mall

Galerie Lafayette 

Rita, they are everywhere

Another city view

No words

Can't stop drooling 

It looked like Mexican food

"love"