Completely Frivolous Saturday 9-26-15

Today we were completely frivolous mainly because we didn't have anyone that we were on schedule to meet.  We leave for the South in 3 days so we're determined to waste a little time, it's our holiday.

We got a leisurely start and caught the Metro down to Opera and transferred over to the RER for the ride out to Rueil-Malmaison.  At Rueil we got off and walked over to the autumn fair at the Faire de Chatou,  you may remember that back in March we went to the spring fair which was our first trip out of Paris to the suburbs.  It is biggest brocante fair in France and started in medieval times as a ham fair in front of Notre Dame, then moved out to Chatou sometime later and picked up the brocantes as part of the fair along the way.  What is great about this brocante is that the offerings range in price from the very cheap to the very expensive, it has a vetting process so that the things being bought are guaranteed as authentic.  The other fun thing of the fair is that there is an entire aisle dedicated to the cuisine of many of the regions of France, and lots of ham/pork.
We looked at several booths first and then made our way to the food, we stopped at the one offering 'cochon de lait' (sucklng pig).  I have to say that it was the best suckling pig I've ever eaten, including in Spain where there are restaurants that specialize in it.
After lunch we picked up the thread and visited almost every one of the purported 700 vendors and had an interesting conversation with a couple that were offering tribal textiles from around the world, Indonesia, Burma, Ecuador, among others.
Deb is searching for some little items but today was not the day evidently because we didn't manage to kick up anything.   I did manage to find another medal to add to my growing collection, very reasonably priced.

As the sun was moving towards evening we made our way back home and made it to the apartment just in time to see Wales defeat England in Rugby World Cup.   An exciting match the whole way with England pretty much in control until the last 5 minutes.  Then in the last 2 minutes they made the decision to forego a penalty kick and opt for a lineout at the Wales 4 meter line.  They won the lineout but got forced into touch, then Wales got the lineout, won that and kicked into touch for the victory.  Very intense.