Mike and I went home this past weekend to celebrate my not so little brother’s college graduation and we couldn’t have asked for nicer weather or a more beautiful weekend with family! I swear I didn’t realize (or appreciate!) how pretty upstate NY is until I wasn’t living there anymore, and I SWEAR it gets prettier every time I’m home. Rolling hills, so much greenery, family time, and a sweet sunset on the ride back to Boston; here are some snapshots from home!
Happy Monday, friends! I realized that I never got around to sharing my pictures from my day trip to Newport with my family over Easter weekend. And since it’s almost the end of the semester and I have 17 papers due…what better time to blog?
We toured some mansions, did the cliff walk, and popped into little shops for salt water taffy and blown-glass ornaments. Newport is just THE cutest and I want to move there and have the best meal of my life all day, every day, forever.
I bring you…an afternoon in Newport!
I had to do ONE last Paris post (I can’t believe it’s been almost a month since we went! Waaaahhhh.), and it just wouldn’t be right to share my Paris photos without posting the Instagram ones! I could have happily spent 97% of my time Instagramming every single Parisian moment, but luckily the lack of iPhone service prevented me from doing so. Here are my favorite shots!
{Paris: The Sights} {Paris: The Eiffel Tower} {Paris: The Food} {Paris: The Details} {Paris: By Night} {Paris: According to Mike}
Hey friends! Today I have a VERY special guest poster: my Paris partner-in-crime and boyfriend Mike! We decided a Paris recap would be a perfect excuse for Mike to make his blog debut, and I’d be lying if I said he didn’t take his post writing VERY seriously. I’d also be lying if I said there weren’t notecards and highlighters and hours.of.editing. involved. This is what I get for dating a law student.
Get pumped up! Here’s Paris: According to Mike.
This is hard. I am not a creative writer and I am definitely not a blogger. I have learned a lot from Melanie’s blogging – I know not to eat my food before a photo is taken, I know how to help switch camera lenses, I know why pinning on Pintrest (?) is important, and I finally got a Twitter account. But this is hard and if you are expecting to laugh, read phrases with mid-sentence periods, or learn a new recipe, then this may not be a post for you. (If you are a family member, then this may give you more info about Paris than I have said over the phone).
As I think about our trip there are a few moments and a few themes that standout – but more importantly (like anyone who has interviewed for a job) I can identify my strengths and my weaknesses.
My (Parisian) weaknesses
Obviously, this trip was about food. We ate a ton of it, we stood in line to wait for it, and we searched for hours to find it. Why did we search for hours? Well… like blogging, I have weaknesses.
1. MAPS
Apparently one of those weaknesses is planning a trip. Before we left I had a great idea – put all of our restaurants, shops, bakeries, etc. on to one map so we could find everything and be efficient. However, my plan failed because my “asterisks” on the map were way too large and most of my notations got us within a few blocks of our goal.
This led to some frantic wanderings and sadly a few missed shops. (“Fromagerie 31,” “the shop with the best crepes,” and a restaurant with “sud ouest” in its name were never found.) It also meant I spent way too much time hiding my face in my map…
On the other hand, because we got lost in Saint Germain des Pres, Melanie got to meet her first French Bulldog in Paris… Minnie. It was love at first sight.
2. FRENCH
I would like to thank Ms. Ferrara, Prof. Hin Tun, and Prof. Luks for my many years of French lessons, I would also like to apologize for butchering the language for one week in March 2012. Here are two quick examples:
-Ordering water. This has always been a challenge for me. In France, like in many European nations, when you order water from your waiter you may be ordering an expensive bottle of Evian. There is a way to order “tap water” but I CANNOT do it. During our trip I accidentally ordered Evian, I made a waiter avoid us for an entire meal, I ordered one glass of water with no refills, and a few times I actually got us a pitcher of tap water. However, it was stressful, it was awful… someone please teach me how to do this correctly.
-Ordering anything really. 
The afternoon we went to the Musee d’Orsay I was not feeling well. (I felt a little bit like this gargoyle.) Melanie wanted lunch and I was not feeling up to a big meal. So I wanted to be smart and order something that would help me feel better. My four-year old, non-doctor, self decided that ice cream was exactly what I needed. Unlike ordering water, I felt confident ordering some citrus ice cream. I knew almost every word on the menu and any ice cream dessert called “Le Colonel” had to be exactly what I needed to feel better. Oh how wrong I was. The word I didn’t know was “Cachaça”. Do you know what that is? It turns out that instead of ordering a nice bowl of citrus ice cream, I ordered one scoop of lemon sorbet, an entire lime (rind included) ground up into bits, and two-thirds of a glass of Cachaça. Cachaça is a liquor made from fermented sugarcane juice. This was my biggest French fail of the trip. But because the drink cost more than the admission ticket to the museum and because the setting was so beautiful; I manned up and finished it.
3. PHOTOGRAPHY
I have a problem. I do not know how to take just one photo. Maybe I just like pretending I am the paparazzi or maybe its because I’m always afraid the perfect photo will be out of focus, but I take lots of photos. This is the real reason we took 1,300 photos in 6 days – because Melanie had to delete 300-400 of my photos.
For example, when trying to take one photo of Melanie – I took 12.
When I wanted a picture of Melanie leaving a great cafe – I made a stop motion movie.
Using a Melanie phrase: “I’m sorry, I’m not sorry.” We got a few good photos didn’t we?
4. PARIS SHOPPING RULES
Like ordering water, another repeated failure was my conduct in Parisian stores. Did you know you couldn’t take photos in grocery stores? Did you know that you can’t serve yourself in chocolate shops? Melanie got a few good laughs as I got yelled at by store managers.
One of these illicit photo shoots was to support Stirrings (a Nantucket/Boston company). We were surprised to find it in one of Paris’s best food markets – Au Bon Marche. However, as I rearranged the bottles to get the best shot (with flash), a store manager quickly came running over to tell me that “It is not possible to take photos in the store.” Oh well, I am a tourist and I already got a bunch of other photos in the store.
Almost instantly after the photo-fiasco, I got yelled at for picking out chocolates in a tiny shop. This french store has been run by the same family for seven generations and had a great selection of marshmallows, caramels, and chocolates. Maybe it’s part of their history, but the employees in white gloves are the only people that can place your chocolates in perfect little cellophane bags. When an employee approached and saw me jamming marshmallows into a wrinkled, ripping bag she was horrified at best. (She also asked if I had touched anything with my bare hands – prepared to throw out anything I had contaminated). Luckily the chocolate and caramels were good enough to replace my sinking feeling of embarrassment.
5. LENT
My last weakness is staying vigilant to Lent. This year I gave up soda (mainly because Melanie was horrified to learn just how much Coca-Cola I drink each day). On Sunday, we got up with the sun to go to mass at Notre Dame. It was a beautiful French service, where I spent more time paying attention to the windows and stonework than to the readings. After church we went to a small boulangerie on Île Saint-Louis and bought a vegetable tartine, a chicken sandwich, an obligatory pain au chocolat, and a palmier. Our riverside lunch, listening to 1930s music played by a band on Pont Saint-Louis, was a highlight for the trip. However, my lunch included a European Coca-Cola (which I love because it uses sugar instead of corn syrup) and I broke my Lenten season sacrifice. I confess.
A few strengths: “Practice for Paris”
Just to rebuild my self-esteem (and because I’ve had some french wine and french chocolate to help inspire my blogging) I think I should list a few of my strengths on this trip.
I warned Melanie for all of January and February that we needed to “practice for Paris.” My memories of a previous trip to Paris are mainly lots of walking, lots of bread, and lots of wine. This is slightly different from our Boston lives – and we needed to practice. While I can’t speak for Melanie, I can proudly say that I got ready for Paris. And this is why I was prepared.
1. I was ready with the camera to document each food shop and eating experience.
2. I had hit the gym to be ready to carry any and all of Melanie’s purchases (including an excessive amount of macarons and chocolates).
3. I knew to pick random churches for a quick visit. (Which explains how we found the practice session for “Concert Spirituel” at the Basilique Sainte-Clotilde. We were able to walk in to a beautiful church to listen to the “Choeur Fra Angelico” sing with the “Ensemble Instrumental de Paris.”)
4. I figured out the pricing system at E.Dehillerin, which apparently stumps many tourists. (If you’re into cooking and love good deals on knives, cooking supplies, pots and pans this culinary supply store is a must see!)
Despite my many weaknesses, this was a trip of a lifetime. I hope all of you can travel to Paris and have the great weather, food, and moments that we got to experience for six days.
{Paris: The Sights}, {Paris: The Eiffel Tower}, {Paris: The Food}, {Paris: The Details}, {Paris: By Night}
For seriously serious, Paris by night is MAGIC. And at sunset? Better than Disneyworld. Better than Christmas morning. Better than the best chocolate you ever ate.
And if you just so happen to be eating the best chocolate you ever ate while watching the sun set in Paris? Forget it.
(The one bad thing about having a fancy camera? When you ask [foreign!] strangers to take your picture [in another language!], they have no idea what they’re doing. Hence Mike and I have 4 pictures together in Paris. 3 of them were taken using my tripod.)
My best attempt at capturing a sparkling Eiffel Tower bokeh picture.
Props to Mike on this last one! C’est magnifique!
Next up is Paris: The Extras.
{Paris: The Sights}, {Paris: The Eiffel Tower}, {Paris: The Food}, {Paris: The Details}
Even though I’ve la-la-LOVED each and every Paris post I’ve done so far: {sights}, {Eiffel tower}, {food}, this one may be my favorite. Here are all the little details I caught on our trip, the things you may not notice at first but inevitably add up to make Paris the spectacular city that it is.
I bring you Paris: The Deets.
We spotted these guys ALL over the city; they’re from the Invader project and so fun to keep an eye out for!
MINNIE!! My frenchie BFF.
This frenchie {with his spiked collar and “I don’t give a ****” glare} is cooler than you’ll ever be.
Tune in for Paris: By Night next!
Something I learned in Paris? French peeps do NOT like you to take pictures of their food/displays/inside their stores. They were all “NO PHOTO” and I was all “Je ne parle pas francais.” *click*click*
And American tourists wonder why the French hate us.
Unfortch, this means I didn’t get 2108325 gorgeous food photos as anticipated. Here are the ones I did manage to snap!
(The above photo is macarons + marshmallows from Pain de Sucre. Chocolate+toasted coconut marshmallow is MAJ.)
This was the first of many picnic dinners. Baguette + cheese + ham + red wine. Sitting on any random park bench in Paris having a picnic while watching the sun set is my idea of heaven. Like really, truly, actually…when I die I want to go to heaven in Paris and eat baguettes and drink wine and admire the Eiffel Tower (Mike you’re invited too). Sorry for the unexpected morbidity.
Lis.ten. While we’re on the topic of “When I die and go to heaven in Paris…”, we need to talk crepes. Because a freshly made Nutella-stuffed crepe would most certainly be my dessert of choice in heaven.
I love, love, loved how many outdoor food stands and markets we stumbled upon. They are EVERYWHERE and the food always looked absolutely gorgeous! We found amazing (and completely random) food while exploring the Marais, including: donuts + HUMONGOUS cotton candy (above), as well as a churro man and the best falafel in the world (NY Times said it!) at L’As Du Fallafel.
Worth every one of the fifty minutes we stood in line.
Another nummy neighborhood was Île Saint-Louis, where we had a “try every French pastry” taste-test behind Notre Dame and made the trek to the original Berthillon for the best ice cream potentially of my life. I got salted caramel ice cream and Mike got pear, both of which tasted EXACTLY like their namesakes but in ice cream form. Highly recommended.
It goes without saying that if you don’t try french onion soup while visiting Paris, you haven’t lived.
Sidewalk cafes are another obvious MUST. We spent hours sitting at cafes, sipping wine and watching the world go by, feeling so very French. But despite my best attempts to speak like a local, eat like a local, and look vaguely bored, I have a feeling I didn’t blend in as much as I had hoped. Can you spot the American here?
Something else I learned? French people hate veggies. It’s possible that the pickles & three bites of lettuce pictured above may have been my ONLY source of veg the entire trip.
And finally, finally…
my dream come true. Macaron heaven.
(Hey people? Macaron is different than macaroon. Macaroons are made of coconut, macarons are not. You can remember this because macaroon has two “o”s and so does coconut. You’re welcome.)
Mike and I tried about 4 gazillion macarons, many of which went unphotographed because I stuffed them in my mouth too fast.
Macarons are the cupcakes of Paris. They are everywhere, in every color and flavor imaginable. We got different flavors at each new place, but decided to try salted caramel every time so that we could proclaim “The Best Salted Caramel Macaron in Paris”.
The winner was (obviously) Laduree. Salty and sweet and chewy and caramely and if you ever go to Paris and don’t bring some back to me we’re no longer friends.
{Other fave macaron places include Pierre Herme, Pain de Sucre, and Fauchon.}
So there you have it! {Some of} my favorite Paris foods. Next up will be Paris: The Details!
The Eiffel Tour. I CAN’T even.
If I were to say I cried every other time we saw it, and claimed it wasn’t real the other half of the time, I would only be exaggerating a teeeeny tiny bit. It’s still so amazing to me that we could be walking down the street and turn the corner, look up, and see THE EIFFEL TOWER. Pinch me.
Here are 1/800th of the pictures I took. Just could NOT get enough.
My very first picture in Paris and subsequently my very first sob fest. Something along the lines of, “It’s ssssooo beeeaauuuutifulllll. I ccc-cc-c-can’t believe it’s reeeaaalll.”
(Mind you, I went to Paris in high school and this is NOT the first time I’ve seen the Eiffel Tower and established its realness.)
(Not entirely sure how Mike puts up with me.)
Casual butt crack.
Come back tomorrow for Paris: THE FOOD.
Friends! Paris was a-m-a-z-i-n-g. Magnifique. The best.
Obviously Mike and I took 1000+ photos, and while I’m not going to share them ALL (you’re welcome), I decided to break it down into a series of posts. Up first is Paris: The Sights. The monuments, the buildings, the fountains, the churches. The things you simply cannot miss. The Eiffel Tower will be getting it’s own post, because, well, it’s the EIFFEL TOWER.
I’m going to recap as best I can along the way and try not to use too many annoying French phrases. Try your hardest to read all of it in a French accent….
..et voila! Paris.
Les Invalides
Our first night in Paris! We had a picnic dinner here and got ourselves Mike very acquainted with our trusty map.
The Louvre
Mike and I have both been in the Louvre before, so we decided to just stop by and snap some pictures of the outside. It was absolutely gorgeous (and empty!) at night and I maybe pretended I was in The Da Vinci Code.
Musée d’Orsay
We had a fabulous lunch sitting next to the old clock window at Musée d’Orsay. I ate my croque-monsieur and watched the minutes tick by on the GIANT minute hand, then we wandered the museum taking in the works of Monet and Renoir. Unbelievable!
Notre Dame
We went to mass at Notre Dame on Sunday, and although we were pretty lost for most of the time, we did learn that “amen” in French is still “amen”. After mass we climbed the 400-step spiral staircase to the top and hung out with Quasimodo.
Pont Alexandre III
My most favorite bridge in Paris.
Saint Paul – Saint Louis
Saint Eustace
Rodin Sculpture Garden
We saw Rodin’s “The Thinker” and made up new names for all the (always naked) sculptures.
Sainte-Chapelle
Our last morning in Paris, we went here to admire the stained glass windows from 1248. So much beauty and history!
Arc de Triomphe
Saint Sulpice
Where I met my new BFF, a French Bulldog (we *think* that in France they are just called bulldogs, and regular bulldogs are called English Bulldogs, which somehow makes me so happy) named Minnie.
Place de la Concorde
Sacré-Cœur
Palais Garnier
Tune in for Paris: The Eiffel Tower tomorrow!
Obviously I’m planning to do 23589327 recap posts, but for now I’ll leave you with this…
Paris. Was. Everything.
