Stealing French Heritage (well, buying it)

Matthieu and I had so much fun this week hitting up sales and markets and an auction. I have always been in love with older things, estate sales, other people's things and history. I even had a subscription to "Times Remembered" while in high school. France has history!

 Our spoils:

Our week included a notions sale at Emmaus- a French Salvation Army of sorts- I picked a sack of fabulous colored buttons just waiting for a craft.  We also went to a post card sale here and added more to our collection started at Frank's in Rouen of early 1900's holiday and special meaning cards.  There are some real doozies that I may share at a later time if people are interested.   

We also had a fabulous meal with Papi and Mami, which led to conversation about postcards, which led to them pulling out three shoeboxes full and M and I getting to choose a bundle to take with us.  I love the old black and white pictures of French scenery.  They feel timeless.

There is a market, like only Europe knows how to do (although I hear DSM has a pretty sweet one) every Saturday in Rennes.  There are the most gorgeous veggies, tantalizing fruits, nuts, olives, sausages made of every animal you could think of,  fish that is so fresh, and the flowers.  OH the flowers.  It is almost overwhelming of the senses.  In addition to all of this is the great people watching- like this guy who did some pretty impressive moves with a ball and rode a unicycle.

Perhaps he went to clown school?

 In addition to the food market, there is a book market every Wednesday and Saturday in Rennes.  One thing I LOVE about France is that they know how to do comic books. And not just for kids- really there are only 4 main kid characters- but adults have endless choices.  

There are entire stores with just comics, graphic novels, manga and the works.

Another great thing about France is that there are a lot of antique and specialized sales in France.  On Sunday we went to a toy and advertising sale.  There were VERY cool metal adverts (like what you might see hanging in a bar) fans, matchbooks, tins (like what you might find biscuits in), toy cars, dolls, picture books and such.  They were also mostly very expensive.  An old Coca-Cola garbage can was 700 euros!  We found our Votre Beaute mags here for a very reasonable price. 

On Monday we attended a weekly auction at an auction house.  There was a statue of St. Anne, the patron saint of Brittany, that we had our eye on.  She was made in Quimper, a town in France known for their ceramics.  It was my first auction, and it was very exciting.  M and I had a very clear price in mind before we came in. I got very nervous when I saw how quickly the other Quimper products were going- my heart started racing and my stomach hurt.  Thank goodness Matthieu took care of the hand raising.  One other person was interested- but we won her! 

I think she will be a great addition to our future Breton Cafe...