Shopping French Style

Every January in France there are nation wide sales, les soldes. All stores have huge sales on their clothes, shoes and other accessories, and everyone goes crazy.

Sarah, Mandy and I decided today that we were going to hit up some of the sales, so we went to the town of Montbéliard, which is about 15 minutes by train. We went there for a Christmas market in December. While we were there we noticed they had a lot more shops than Belfort, so we wanted to give it a try.

There are some really good deals out there. Almost everything is at least 30 percent off and some stuff is as high as 70 percent. In the sales I bought a two purses for about 17 euros because they were 50 and 70 percent off. It is amazing how cheap things were.

I think everyone in France just waits until January to buy their clothes for the whole year. Every store is so crowded, but I guess you can’t blame them. They just want to save a little money like me!

I think I read somewhere that it is actually a government-mandated sale, and it goes on for about 6 weeks! I wish the US had something like that every year. It was so exciting to see how much money you were saving (but I guess you aren’t really saving much when you buy more stuff ☺).

It was a nice way to spend the afternoon because this morning we had another meeting with the other language teachers. They are so bad because we have to meet at 8:30 in the morning on a Saturday, and sit around and do nothing. It would be really nice if we actually learned or discussed something. O-well, at least it is only once a month.

I think next weekend we are going to go to Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Someone recommended it to me, and when I looked it up it looked really nice. It isn't far from here. Just a little south of Bale. I guess I will spend my Sunday doing some more research on the Internet. It should be fun!