Day 29: Marche des Fiertes in Paris

Today was the first day that I have been in Paris during the big sales. We went to Printemps (prin-tomp) which is a huge department store like Harrods in London where every store is way out of my price range but it was beautiful to see and the sales were actually pretty good (sidenote: anyone who wants a longchamp and will pay me back for it once I'm in the states should facebook me or something because they're cheaper here, small ones are 50 euro). We also hit up la rue de commerce which is a nice street with slightly expensive clothes that are reasonably priced during the sales because most things are 50% off.
We then rushed back to change into more colorful clothes because today was la marche des fiertes which is one of the biggest gay pride parades in the world. Something like 700,000 people were expected to be at the parade so we were excited to see it. Once we got to the Bastille which was the final destination of the parade there were these two older guys on a stage DJ'ing and there were rainbow flags everywhere as well as cops in these crazy riot outfits with armor all over them like armadillos. It was such a crazy scene but what surprised me most was that there were no anti-gay marriage protestors which was a nice sign but surprising because this was the first pride parade since gay marriage was made legal in France. Once we heard the noise coming from on of the streets we went down to see the parade and walked with them the last few yards back to the Bastille and enjoyed the music after. People were in all sorts of crazy outfits and with all different body paint. I didn't get many pictures because I didn't want to be out taking pictures of everyone with my phone. It was a crazy experience though and it was really great because it was just a happy event and everyone was just simply happy.