Life: Idiotropic

Today I walked Arianna to the bus and let Tiara stay home from school so we could have a mother/daughter day. It was the best day since Luci was going to a friend's house after school giving us until 3 to get home to meet Aria at the bus stop.

We drove down to Aachen to go to the Christmas market which is always fun, but the weather wasn't particularly cooperative. It spit cold rain at us and the wind pushed us so hard that there was one time in particular that we couldn't move forward at all until the long gust was over. I felt like I was at the beach during a storm, the wind was so strong. Being early on a weekday, the crowds had lessened a little, but there were still large groups of people at the market in spite of the weather. French and British groups were abundant.

So we walked quickly through the outdoor market area and only stopped where Tiara really wanted to stop - the jewelry stands. It was nice though because the cold wet wind forced us to escape inside the shops most of which I'd never been in before. Some of the windows with the 1800Euro purses and coats are intimidating enough, so I don't ever think of going inside... but today we did. I found a dress that would be perfect for the Christmas party that was only 1900 Euro - the sale price! Tiara found a coat that was absolutely beautiful - a mere 438 Euro at 40% off. We didn't buy anything in any of the shops, but it was fun to go in and dream and a few places were actually affordable and places we'll go back to. The truly great thing about today is that we discovered another shopping area that I'd never been to before. We always turn right at the end of the main street to go to the Dom, but today we turned left and found some beautiful shops including a toy store that Elise would like to live in.

I saw the accordion man again and this time my camera timer wasn't on, so I stopped and caught him on film holding his umbrella while playing Italian tunes. Elise got to ride the carousel again. And Tiara and I got our Starbucks fix sitting back in the large comfortable chairs relaxing with our coffees and pretending, for the moment, that we were carefree. It was a good day.