Back to the Bazaar (and Another Picnic)

We went to a tailor whom we found out actually takes measurements (most don't) and sews a decent hem, and he took all of our material and said the dresses would be ready two days before the picnic we needed them for.

He asked us each how big of a heel we would be wearing (yes, they wear heels to picnics) so that he would know how much longer to make the dress.

Even though I never wear heels, something clicked in my brain, and I said about 3 1/2 cm.  What?

Kylie said even bigger (and she has never worn a heel in her life)!!

We took the material to the tailor on a Sunday, and he was supposed to have the dresses ready in 12 days (one day before the picnic), BUT...the picnic date got changed to two days earlier (from a Saturday to a Thursday).

We went back to the tailor the day before the picnic (at day 10, on a Wednesday) to check on his progress.

He had only started one of them.

*By the way, every trip to the tailor was made with a friend who spoke the language; otherwise, I wouldn't have known much that was going on.

We told him about the dilemma of the picnic date being moved, and he said he could finish them by "tomorrow" at 1pm.

I did not have high hopes.

But if we were to be ready, that meant that "today" we needed to buy shoes, belts, etc. for the picnic, which was the following day.

The girls and I left our friend who spoke the language, and we took off to the bazaar by ourselves.

We were on a mission.

The girls both found belts and bracelets they liked quickly, and we bought Keira a crown and shoes without too much trouble.

The trouble was shoes for the rest of us.

This is what we were faced with.

Tall, spikey heels.

Not only that, in every store, the shoe sizes stopped one size short of Kylie's.

I had no way to communicate with the tailor about sewing shorter dresses, so what's a girl to do?

The organization of the shoes was astounding.

Sizes and types stacked everywhere, and the back room looked even more scary...I peeked.

I'll tell you what's a girl to do...buy shoes that hurt your feet.

Even me.  The shoes that matched my dress did not come in my size.

Yuck!  Why do women do these kinds of things?

Karis was the only sensible one who didn't tell the tailor she wanted any length on her dress, and she bought nice flats.

In the future, maybe we'll buy shoes without heel straps, and that should help.


The following day, we went for the dresses.

None were completed.

We waited.

One by one, they were finished and we tried them on.

Karis' didn't fit properly, but even with a lady in there who spoke English, she couldn't get them to fix it.

(By the way, Keira wanted to know the lady's name, so I told her to say "What's your name?" but instead, I really told her to say, "I have no eyes."  See, my language is really progressing  :)

Well, we finally finished, and we rushed home.

We had 30 minutes to figure out how to get in all of our new gear and get beautiful.  

This post is longer than I wanted it to be, so maybe I'll just finish with pictures from the picnic.

See my pretty shoes on the bottom right ;)

You can see Kylie's golden shoe sticking out.

Keira was not happy that she couldn't run and play in a long dress.

I think a lot of little girls felt like that.

Here comes the dolma (rice, dill, and veggies stuffed in grape leaves and steamed)!

It was 7:30 when we left the picnic (and it still wasn't over).  There were people JUST coming INTO  the park for their picnics!  Doug and I guesstimated that there were several thousand people there that day.  But keep in mind, this park is LARGE, LARGE, LARGE!

Check out this aerial view.