Shopping amateur

Well, Gigi and I survived our first day together! Of course, the problem is that I might have created a shopping monster in the meantime. Gigi and I met our friends (Donna and her college-age daughter and roommate who are visiting from the States) and went to the "fake market" this morning. OK, wow. This was not just 20 stalls, this was more like hundreds of stalls of clothes, purses, sunglasses, toys, shoes, and watches. I'm sure there were other things as well, but I quit seeing after a while. I mean, this place was jam-packed with stuff, and all the shopkeepers sitting outside their shops talking/yelling at you as you walk by trying to get your attention. It's a lot to handle! But fortunately, if you are me and you have no ethics you just use your very cute baby and say things like "don't yell, you're scaring her" and they immediately become very nice. They still try to get you to come into their shop, but they do it in a nicer way. They love the babies over here!
But let me tell you, for anyone who knows their purses and sunglasses (which I do not) they would be in heaven here. Even I could tell that some of these knock-offs are really great quality. Some are really cheap, but others are actually real leather. If my friend Shelly is reading this blog, you are going to love this when you come visit. It's better than the designer shoe outlets in Italy a few years ago!
When you go into these shops you look at the bags on the shelves. But if you know what to ask for, they either take you to the row of "good bags" in the back, or they open up the suitcases they have for sale and take out the higher quality bags. And all the good wallets are in the drawers, not on display in the case. It's quite a system and I'm glad that I went with Donna and Tracie, who had spent the entire day there yesterday and figured a bunch of this stuff out!
But, of course, the real "deals" to be had here are by bargaining. And I suck at bargaining. After a few negotiations I just want to tell them what I'm willing to pay and be done with it. But they want to give me their "new friend's price", their "first customer of the day price", or their "pretty lady price". And they keep asking me what's my "maximum" price. Ugh, luckily I am not so attached to any of these bags that I can't walk away. But I did learn the valuable lesson that if I'm interested in more than one thing in the shop, they are willing to bargain a lot more. I never could tell which item they were making the money on though.
Tracie & her friend Stephanie studied magazines on the way over here and knew exactly what they were looking for and what the cool bags and wallets were. And they were super bargainers, I was impressed. In fact Stephanie bargained a woman down on a bag that she decided she didn't want, so I bought! That was clearly my easiest best purchase of the day.
But the reason I say that I might have created a monster with Gigi is that every time we went by a shop with any shoes, she would point to exactly the pair in her size and say "Gigi's shoes". It got so bad that I had to buy her a little Dora purse and let her empty my purse into hers to distract her from the "Gigi shoes". Although I have to admit that the girl has taste, she kept picking out these totally cute pink and white Puma shoes. In the end, she settled for me buying her a pair of Crocs for a whopping $5!
By the way, today was also significant because Ms. Olivia made it to and from school on the bus all by herself today. She arrived home at the appointed time, on the right bus, looking very happy and sweaty. She said her day was great and she talked up a storm about her new teacher.