In Paris, there are some very nice specialty shops: Le Pain Quotidian, which is a very nice bakery/cafe; L'Occitane, which sells soaps and the like from Provence; and Oliviers & Co., which deals in expensive but very high-quality olive oil (and other olive and olive oil products). In fact, all three of them have shops close to each other in the Marais, the old Jewish quarter (as a side note, the Marais has evolved into the Parisian equivalent of the West Village, or Chelsea; one bar my sister and I walked past had about 70 men in it and 3 women (and I'm pretty sure that one of those women actually worked there, so she doesn't count)).
All three stores sell some really amazing stuff and Le Pain Quotidian has a large communal table for everyone to sit at, which is pretty cool.
The kicker, however is that all three stores have branches within 90 seconds (by foot) of my front door back home in here in Manhattan (and the Le Pain Quotidian even has the large communal table, to boot!).
From this, we can conclude the following:
- Globalization, while not inherently bad, certainly takes some of the fun out of travelling.
- I live in a neighborhood that's way too bourgious.
- I really shouldn't complain.