Le Bon Marché

Finally in Paris the first thing I did was going to my favorite shopping mall Le Bon Marché, Bourgeois Culture and Department Store, founded in 1838 and then enlarged by a new building designed by Gustav Eiffel in 1869. Not comparable to Galerie Lafayette or Le Printemps. It is another world. Apart from some very elegant Parisiennes in their fifties, it’s always empty. As if it managed to stay a secret to the rest of the world during all these decades. Coming through the door to this “Cathedral of commerce” as Émile Zola would call it, makes me feel at home. My real Paris.

I felt happy until the moment I tried to pay a beautiful pair of shoes I just sought out. My German credit card wouldn’t work, apparently I’ve reached my limit. So I tried my new French card and realized at this very moment that I had no idea what the code was. Next to me, one of these elegant Parisian ladies was waiting for her turn to pay the 700€ Prada shoes. She looked the other way, trying to make me feel less embarrassed. A rather unpleasant moment. The first day of my trip, everything is yet to come and I’m standing there with no cash and no functioning card, a wedding ahead, a beautiful dress but no shoes.
Here it was, my second little Paris-drama. I ran to the next bank. ‘There is nothing we can do’, they told me. French banks don’t have checkouts anymore, I would have to wait until they send me a new code. Great, thanks. I went to another bank, my bank, my consultant, even if that meant crossing the whole city. I had 30 minutes left before it closed. After 20 minutes in the metro and one station from my final destination, there it was, big black numbers in my head, the code, a miracle.