Paris = Food <3

Get excited about part 1 of my first trip of the break! We have 3 weeks off and I planned quite a bit of traveling (probably too much, but thats ok). The first bit was to Paris and then London/Brighton, where I currently am visiting Kristin. I'll give you the low-down on Paris first and then update on the England part of the trip when I get back to Dublin.

I left for Paris Thursday evening after my classes were done (yay, one term down!). RyanAir flies into Beauvais airport, which isn't actually in Paris so had to bus into Paris and then take the metro to Saloni's apartment. It was a fairly easy journey, but took me 2 hours to get from the airport to her place. That night Saloni and Chole, who was also visiting, had been to a party that Saloni's school hosted, so we just basically went to sleep that night.

The next day Saloni had class in the morning so Chole and I took to the streets and did a bit of wandering around Paris, taking pictures and just enjoying the city. We saw the Bastille, I ate my first pastry for breakfast (as you will see later, I ate quite a lot of food in Paris, it was kind of the theme of the weekend), we walked through the high-end shopping district and then through the tourist shopping district, took pictures of the Notre Dame, went through part of the Latin Quarter, stopped for a stuffed baguette (lots of cheese, ham, and I think cream cheese in the middle - very tasty!) and then went back to meet Saloni after class. We stopped at a grocery store to get some cheap food - Paris can get expensive! - and 2 euro bottles of wine (except for their wine :D ) and went home to make lunch and plan the afternoon. We decided to explore Saloni's neighborhood which has a lot of shops and cute boutiques. We shopped for a bit, there is a way cool frozen foods chain that sells anything and everything frozen, and Chole tried on dresses, and then meandered home, almost but not quite getting lost in the process. Saloni made us a french dinner which was delicious - green beans, pureed carrots, quiche, and an apple tart. That night we stayed in as well and just talked and planned some more.

The next day I spent with Fatima, we went on a culinary adventure in Paris. Our goal for the day was to try every quintessentially Parisian food experience, and I think we did a fairly good job of it :) We started out with breakfast at Angelina's, a tea house that is famous for their hot chocolate which is sooo tasty and basically just melted chocolate poured in a mug served with whipped cream. Also for breakfast they give you a croissant, pain du chocolat, and a raisin swirled thing, bread with jam and butter, and juice. After that we were quite full and headed off to the Musee de Orsay to see some art and digest a bit (we didn't want to be entirely overzealous hehe). I really liked the museum, and it's much more managable than the Louvre. After the museum we decided to head to a park Fatima had wanted to see. On the way we stopped at a street vendor and bought various pieces of candy and chocolate to try and nibbled on that throughout the day. Just before the park was a creperie and so I had my first crepe in France - ham and cheese. It was very delicious and we ate them in the park and then wandered around, saw a massive head statue, watched people play tennis, and wandered out.

We next wandered through the Latin Quarter and went to see the Pantheon. It was pretty on the outside but we didn't go in because it cost money and we're cheap :) We passed an outdoor market, but they were closing up so we didn't get to shop but saw it. Then while we were walking I had the weirdest feeling that I had been there before, and when we turned a corner I recognized a wine shop from when I had come to Paris on my HS trip. It was pretty crazy and I was a little weirded out that I remembered a place that I had only been once! As we left the Latin Quarter we decided to go get ice cream on the smaller island, I don't remember what its called, but I had heard there was a really good ice cream place there. It turns out that there are lots of ice cream places there, so we couldn't just go to the first one we saw. As we were looking for it I saw a cute bakery and went in and bought macaroons, 6 flavours though I'm not entirely sure what they all were. Fatima's allergic to nuts so I was the only one to enjoy this French dessert, but Fatima did ask the shop keeper about the ice cream place and he gave us directions. As we were going there we found a really cute shop that sold all sorts of crazy things, and we both bought adorable timers that are shaped like lady bugs :) We then found the ice cream place and tried fruit sorbets. They were absolutely delicious! I tried mango and raspberry and I think Fatima had coconut and strawberry maybe? Super tasty!

We were quite full at this point, actually , we had been all day, but were definitely reaching our breaking point now, but we still had several key things to try. First though, we walked past Notre Dame and I wanted to get a scarf because they were fairly cheap and I wanted a green one so we set out looking through all the vendors to find the particular shade of green I wanted. Fatima found it for me and I was super excited and bought it. We then went to go find another open air market, what used to be one of the biggest ones but is now a mall. We thought that it still had some market to it but apparently not, just mall. After that we headed to get coffee and chill at a cafe. On the way I had to stop at a chocolatier to satisfy my chocoholic-ness, and we passed the oldest bakery in Paris so I bought another pastry (I told you there were lots of them). Then we went to a cafe for some coffee, both to pick us up as we were tired from our long day of walking and as a French experience. After the cafe we went to more gardens and I ate my pastry - I don't know what it was but something strawberry with mousse inside. We decided to finish our day with french onion soup for dinner, as we couldn't eat much more than that. Fatima knew of a restaurant that made good soup so we went there for our final meal. I contemplated also getting a meat and cheese platter but my stomach said no. The soup was delicious but unfortunately my day didn't end there - Fatima had other plans. She told me that her favorite crepe place was just down the street, near our metro stop, and I couldn't have a food day in Paris without a banana nutella crepe. So away we went for the final food of the day. It was indeed a delicious crepe :)

At the end of the day we realized that we had walked through all of the first 7 districts and ate something in all of them. Our mission was a success, and neither of us wanted to eat anything for quite a while :P

That night Saloni and her room mates were having a wine party so I got back just in time to get ready and meet her friends in Paris while drinking some wine, I guess another quintessential parisian experience. Overall it was quite a good day.

The next morning, since I wake up crazy early all the time, I went to the train station to buy my ticket to London the next day. With my eurail pass I could get to Calais for 3 euro, as opposed to the 75 euro to go all the way to London directly, so I opted for that and reserved my ticket for 8 am the next day. When I called Saloni they were still just waking up so I decided to go see the Sacre Coure (I can't spell in French), which Saloni and Chole had visited the day before. It is a gorgeous church on top of a hill. You had to walk up a crazy staircase to get to it, but it was awesome to see, and the inside was cool too. I liked it more than the Notre Dame. After walking around I headed back to Saloni's and made a lunch before the 3 of us headed out for the day. We had lots more planned for the day. We started by walking to the Louvre and then headed down through the gardens below it to the Champs Elysee. We walked up it and stopped at an adorable bakery, Laduree, and bought pastries there. Their macaroons were amazing! My two favorites were the dark chocolate and rose flavored ones, mmm! I also got a madeline to try and an amazing chocolate cake/pastry that was incredibly rich. From there we continued along to the Arch de Triomphe (again with the spelling) and walked up to it and took lots of pictures. It had been raining/drizzling all morning, but the sun started to come out at this point and we got really excited.

We continued our walking in the direction of the Eiffel Tower, by way of chocolate shop which was unfortunately closed, so we just meandered and took pictures along the way. We got to the Eiffel Tower just as a break was reappearing in the clouds and so walked down the gardens to get a good view and took lots of pictures in front of it of us doing silly things like licking the tower :P Saloni got a call from Kristen saying a friend of a friend was visiting and headed to the Eiffel Tower as well, so we waited for him so he could go up it with us. We met him under the tower and then walked up. We walked to the 2nd floor and then took the elevator up. The day had cleared out really nicely and we took lots of pictures before heading down in search of more crepes and food. We went back to the eiffel tower to watch the lights go on which was really pretty, and then back to Saloni's for dinner. One of Saloni's friends was having his birthday at a bar that served drinks from baby bottles, so we headed over to that, but we didn't want to order drinks because they were expensive, and so the bartender made us leave. We ended up just heading back and going to bed since Chole and I were both leaving the next day.

I woke up pretty early to catch my train to Calais and headed out without incident. At the station I wanted to get an eclair as my final french pastry, but didn't realize that I had to go through customs becaue I was riding the eurostar, even though I wasn't leaving the country, and on the other side there were no eclairs :( I had an espresso instead and hopped on the train. I half slept and half watched the french country side and then got off at Calais and took a bus to the city center. There a very nice cab driver gave me directions to the ferry so I could buy tickets across and I walked through the city to get there. They had a gorgeous park in the center and I passed a bakery that had eclairs and bagettes! I bought them for lunch and happily continued to the ferry. Eurail pass won again and I got half price tickets to Dover. I'm pretty sure the security guards were laughing at me carrying a baguette through security, but it was super tasty. I also confused the British passport checker, cuz apparently I had been stamped in Paris as going all the way to London, and she asked me why I didn't (it would have been much easier and faster) and then laughed at me when I told her I would end up saving about 50 euro :P

I then got on the ferry and headed away from France! It was a fun trip, I definitely enjoyed France. I can't seem to be able to write short posts, sorry guys. I'll fill you in on the ferry ride and London/Brighton later!