And now, demonstration number two (la deuxieme manifestation). So we went downtown on Saturday afternoon to shop for some euro shoes to go with my black jeans that Holly forced on me (but I look good and they stay clean so hey...) It was a balmy day and apparently ALL of Paris had a similar idea. The streets around Galleries Lafayette were absolutely jammed with people. The kids were getting cranky so Holly had the bright idea of stopping in a cafe and getting some hot chocolate and wine. Really, a glass or two really takes the edge off of the afternoon and kind of mellows everything out. The crowds were all around the opera area and once we got a few blocks away the streets were really uncrowded. We went to Samarataine (one of the oldest department stores in Paris), I bought some shoes, and we decided to walk towards the Louvre. Well, suddenly there were a whole lot of people on the streets also going in the general direction of the Louvre, like thousands, except that unilke us, they all had banners and signs and a van with loudspeakers and music. So we joined an anarchist parade for a while. Well, they weren't violent, they were very nice, I agreed with their slogans (mainly about the importance of art and self-expression and a few general anti-corporate slogans), they had nice music, and we were all going the same way. When we got closer to the Louvre I could see that marching down rue Rivoli (running perpendicular to our street) there were thousands more people carrying different banners and lots of riot cops on the side streets. Note the posted picture of the roller boogie cops. At that point our paths diverged and we continued on our way to the metro. I don't know what they ended up doing, none of the web news sources I looked at had any information about it. Maybe it was a show of support for Madrid, maybe it was about the upcoming regional elections, I dunno. Nice way to spend an afternoon in Paris though.