Diwali

Before we left for our trip, Amanda told me about this fabulous store to buy reasonable scarves, earings, and bracelets. It's called Diwali, and when I looked it up, there were tons of online reviews and write ups on blogs and travel forums singing its praises.  They were accurate.

So since we had only a half a day or less on Friday, and we wanted to maximize our two-day museum passes for Sat and Sun, we decided to eat lunch and search out the shopping Mecca that is Diwali. We walked up the block, chose one of the many eateries, found a seat outside, and enjoyed our first Parisian meal. Sososososo good!

We looked up Diwali online, figured out which one was closest (there are four), and figured out a metro route to get us as close as possible.  Then we used my Offmaps app (which proved to be very valuable on this trip and I highly recommend it) to navigate the tight winding streets.  

It wasn't there.  We were at the address it said online, but the store wasn't there!  Back to Offmaps to find another one, another period of figuring out how to get there on the metro, more walking, and finally

Success!!

It was surprisingly hard to find, but well worth it. They have a huge inventory, and it's easy to get overloaded.  But we carried on and persevered.

For the whole rest of our time in Paris, we ran into the other Diwali stores everywhere we went.  Go figure.

Then we walked to the Eiffel Tower so Hannah could take some pictures of her there with her red striped shirt on.  She had been planning that moment for months, complete with the outfit for the picture.  

I love all those square trees everywhere.  They are so interesting and shady.  From the inside, their branch structure reminds me of something out of Tolkein. 

Hannah also put a lock that she had engraved on the Pont des Arts.

As she said more than once on this trip, she is a walking Pinterest board.