JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

If we lived in Paris we would hardly ever buy anything new. We would furnish our house with things we found in flea markets and vintage stores. There are some huge flea markets in the city, frequented by professional buyers who snap up the good stuff and sell them to collectors on e-Bay. We went to one in the country, where families who have lived there for generations just want to dispose of their grandparents’ things.

The flea market was the size of a hangar and crammed with relics from other people’s lives. It’s a good thing we had only one hour to spend before catching the train, or we’d still be there now, sifting through years of abandoned possessions. We were hoping to unearth some magic object that would choose us to be its next master.

There were shelves and shelves of china and kitchenware. We found an escargot dish for 50 cents. There was a stack of old porcelain that we kept going back to until Kristin turned over a teacup and saw the Limoges label. Sold! The sticker said 3 euros and we thought it was the price per piece, but it turned out to be the price of the lot. Now our cats can eat out of Limoges china (Thank you, bubble wrap).

We were on the lookout for something we could pass off for a missing Juan Luna and sell for Php55 million pesos (with the proper authentication), but all we found were some fake Renoirs.

There were also some massive tribal masks, if you could stand to have them staring at you all day.