je vis en france

Paris in Perspective

So in my Myth of Paris class we’ve been discussing the difference between the layout of Paris and New York. We’ve talked about how the main difference is that while New York is focused on the skyline and the height, Paris is focused on perspective: being able to see those gorgeous views down the long avenues. I took a very long walk yesterday and tried to capture some of the best views Paris has to offer.

The Opera:

Rue Montorgueil:

Place de la Concorde:

Eglise de la Madeleine:

Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Elysée:

This isn’t the view down an avenue, but come on, it’s the Eiffel Tower:

Trocadero:

These are only some of the amazing views that you can get in Paris, and it’s incredibly impossible to not gawk at the views each time I see them, even though I’ve been to Paris 3 times before and have been living here for the past 4.5 months. This city is so increibly beautiful, it’s not to let my inner tourist come out sometimes ;)

What I now spend my money on

Yesterday in terms of spending:

2 euros on the best pasteis outside of Portugal (Comme à Lisbonne)

3 euros on the best coffee in the city of Paris (Caféothèque)

5.5 euros on the best fallafel in the world (L’As du Fallafel)

2.5 euros on the best ice cream in the world (Berthillon)

5 euros on a 5 pieces of amazing chocolate (Fouquet)

7.5 euros on 4 fantastic macarons (Carette)

0.5 euros on a demi-baguette from my host family’s favorite boulangerie

10 euros on drinks from my favorite bar (The Long Hop)

That’s what I like to call thoughtful spending.

An Ode to the 4ème Arrondissement

I’ve decided this is my favorite arrondissement. Except for the fact that it’s a little hard to get to from my house, it’s conveniently located right around a lot of my favorite parts of Paris.

There are places like these: (Hôtel de Ville)

(Place des Vosges)

(Oldest house in Paris)

There are views like these: (rue des Rosiers)

(St. Paul)

(Toward the Bastille)

There are posters like these:

And displays in shops like these:

There are opportunities to eat food like these: (Pasteis from Comme à Lisbonne)

(Gelato from Pozzetto)

(Cheesecake from Sacha Finkelsztajn)

(Cupcakes from Berko)

There are restaurants like these: (L’As du Fallafel, best fallafel in the world)

(Le Loir dans le Théière, best lemon meringue pie in the world)

(Breakfast in America, best American breakfast outside of the US)

(Berthillon, best ice cream in the world)

And of course, this amazing building.

Basically, this arrondissement has almost everything you would want in an arrondissement, and therefore I’ve spent a lot of time here and am very happy to. Quatrième for the win!

No More Lazy Sundays.

No time for lazy Sundays when I only have 12 days left abroad!

Today, I got up and got out to the 6th arrondissement where I met up with Margaret, Louisa, and Lexy for brunch at Eggs & Co. It was lovely and the eggs were really good! It was fun to get an omelette, but I kinda wish I had gotten one of the eggs “cocotte” like Louisa got because it just looked so cute! We were sitting up in this area called the “chicken coop” and had great service and great conversation, it was a good time :)

After brunch, Margaret, Lexy, and I walked toward checking off another patisserie on the list (because they’re both foodies and we had saved money and room in our stomachs on brunch by not buying the full thing and only buying the eggs portion). Our choice: La Patisserie des Rêves.

Originally I had been turned off by the glass chambers hanging over the pastry display, but after having read an article about one of my favorite pastry chef’s trip to Paris and seeing him eating a pastry from there so happily, I decided to give it another go.

We sat down on a bench in a park nearby and we happily shared our incredible desserts, and I think Margaret did a good job recreating the picture with me :)

Margaret and I then made our way over to Shakespeare and Company so we could say hi to some of her (and now my) friends there! It was so cool to be able to walk into this store I’ve spent some time in and now know people who work there! We were telling them about our pastry adventures we’ve been having the last couple of days and they playfully said since we were planning on stopping by somewhere else to bring something back for them. I decided to actually follow through with that request.

Margaret and I crossed the river, passing Ile St Louis and Berthillon and Notre Dame and headed into the Marais to pick up gelato from Pozzetto, but unfortunately for us, the line out the door made it so all we wanted were pasteis from Comme à Lisbonne. I was so proud of myself for not giving into temptation again and only bought two pasteis for the girls working at Shakespeare & Co. to go (even saying no when the woman asked me if I wanted to keep one out of the bag to eat right away, almost caved right there). The girls were so happy! I was the sugar fairy bringing them sweets in the middle of their shift :)

Margaret recommended that since she needed to go back home and study that I should enjoy the sunshine and go to the Jardin des Plantes, which I hadn’t been to yet. We walked along the Seine together until we had to part ways, her crossing the river and I staying on the Left Bank. I explored this park for a little while, taking in the sunshine, climbing some of the little hills, and taking pictures of some of the animals outside the menagerie. I didn’t end up going inside the actual menagerie because I would have had to pay, but I did get to take a picture of some cute and cuddly kangaroo things :)

I then took a pit stop at Sugarplum to say hi, walked around trying to find a book store that would be open on a Sunday (no such luck where I was), and headed home. I decided to do something very French for a gouter: picked up a demi-baguette, broke off a piece, and spread some butter on it. So simple and so delicious. Something I’ll miss when I’m back in the States.

I had a great host family dinner as usual, I’m really feeling like part of the family now! They invited me to come to their country house before I leave, which I’m not sure I’m going to take them up on, but I think I’ll definitely keep in touch with them after I leave :) Very happy.

There are so few places left on the list! It’s crazy! I’m not sure what my week is going to look like, but so far with no plans and no classes, the world is my oyster. Who knows what I’ll be doing tomorrow! (Although honestly I think tomorrow I’m gonna hang closer to home and actually do some studying and writing of papers so that I don’t have everything come crashing down on me haha).

Catching up on my crazy week

Well after my insanity that was last week, I did kind of deserve what naturally follows lack of sleep and random eating: sickness. I spent the night of Tuesday and all of Wednesday inside fighting it off, hoping it wouldn’t slow me down too much, whatever it turned into. Luckily for me, it’s just a bit of a sniffle and a throat tickle now so it’s not slowing me down (good thing too, because I had an exam in my geography of food class on Thursday afternoon)!

Thursday, after my Myth of Paris class in the morning (actually in the classroom this week) and my geography of food exam in the afternoon, I went to the second half of the geography class, where we talked about the food of North America (specifically the United States. It was SO interesting to hear how the French describe certain dishes we have in the US, and I particularly enjoyed relearning about the regional specialties that I’ll be going home to in just a few short weeks (for example, our teacher described Boston Baked Beans as “haricots blanc avec sauce tomate” or white beans in a tomato sauce, not the best description I’ve ever heard haha). Very fun. And I think this might be one of the last classes of its kind, because next week is a day off for French classes everywhere and then the following Thursday is reviewing the exam, so no more learning :( Well it was definitely a great class! And I think the last paper I have to do for it will be really fun (comparing Ratatouille and Julie & Julia the movies)!

After class I headed out to Sugarplum, something I have been doing more and more just because I can and it makes me happy to go there :) I got myself an ice coffee (man it was hot outside) and ended up chatting with this very nice American couple who were visiting Paris and stumbled upon this place for a couple hours! It was so nice! Mostly I just hung out there chatting with my friends behind the counter and the owners in the back and the people who came in and out. It’s just such a nice atmosphere there, I feel like I can just stay for hours :) And it’s really just so nice to be able to walk in a place and know everyone and have them be happy to see you. Becoming a regular at places was something I had decided to skip when I came to France, having chosen to see more rather than do the same often, but it’s definitely something I recommend for students going abroad: have one place you feel comfortable and can go to all the time where people know you and are happy to see you. It really can make a huge difference. In Aix, it was the Tomato Guys and the Cheese Man. In Paris, it’s Sugarplum.

Friday I let myself sleep in, trying to give my body a chance to heal even more, before meeting up with Emily and heading over to Coutume Café since Emma had never been. It was just as delicious as I remembered, although last time it was not nearly as crowded, I’m not sure how that happened. The Café Coutume this time around was dark chocolate mocha with anise and it was delicious.

I then brought Emma over to the Marais and introduced her to Comme à Lisbonne for her first real pasteis (she obviously loved it) and then taking her out to take a peek at Pain de Sucre’s guimauves (marshmallows) and Berko’s cupcakes (without buying any because we had had enough for the day).

Once she left me, I wandered around my favorite arrondissement (that’s right, I’ve decided it’s the 4th) before heading across the Seine toward Cardinal Lemoine and Sugarplum. This was obviously not because I wanted to go get more of their delicious pastry (which I probably would have eaten if they offered me a slice of their cake) but to meet up with some of my favorite Sugarplums for dinner! The tips we’ve made of the last couple of months have gone in the Sugarplum “Sushi Fund” and now they’re taking us out to dinner for Pho! It was such a fun evening hanging out with Sugarplum people (who are all inherently nice ad fun and bubbly and love food so basically it was a fantastic evening :)

After dinner, it was still relatively early, so I decided to do something I could only do in Paris: I walked from the Pantheon through the Latin Quarter, picked up a butter sugar crêpe, and walked along the Seine from Notre Dame to Pont Neuf to the Louvre before heading back toward the metro home. It was such a delicious evening.

Today was equally awesome if not more so, because today I took a group of people on a pastry adventure of the 9th arrondissement.

Popellini for creampuffs (or Popellinis).

Delmontel for a lemon tart.

Chloé S for a cupcake.

And Aurore Capucine for interesting twists on classical French pastries.

We sat in a park and enjoyed our delicacies in the sunshine before parting ways, a little more sugar tucked in our stomachs and a few crumbs still on our fingers. (I’ll go into the details later, but for now just a resume of what we did should do).

After that, Leanne and I went to the last few places on my list although we had less success: Le Grenier à Pain (a new post on David Lebovitz’s blog) had no more Kouign Amann which is what we went there for. And Fouquet was unfortunately closed for the next week (and apparently every weekend as well…).

But we did got to A La Mère de Famille, this traditional chocolaterie and candy shop that seemed to have stayed locked in time. So awesome. I just picked up a chocolate bar since at the time I could conceive buying any more sweets than that.

We then made our way into the 8th arrondissement where I was trying to cross another patisserie off our list: Café Pouchkine in the Printemps department store. After going up all the escalators trying to find it in the first building, we stumbled upon this amazing view for the 9th floor! Oh Paris, never ceasing to amaze us with your beauty.

We finally found Café Pouchkine and picked up a croissant vanille and headed to the steps of the Opera for a little snack. Oh man, it was just a great afternoon, perfect walking weather, with great friends and food.

We split up for a few hours but had plans to meet near Oberkampf for dinner, so I decided I would walk there from the Opera. (Most people would look at a map and think I was ridiculous, but I honestly didn’t think I had enough time to get all the way back home without having to immediately turn around and go back and I figured I would prefer to be outside on the streets than in a metro anyway, so I walked. I walked the entire length of Rue Saint Honoré in the 1st, into the 4th, past the Centre Pompidou and taking a quick regrouping stop in the Place des Vosges, past the Bastille, and up Boulevard Richard Lenoir up to Avenue République and down to Oberkampf. I made it there with 25 minutes to spare (not enough to get a spot at a café but enough for it to be awkward haha), total 1.5 hours. I found my friends, went out to dinner at a place that was relatively inexpensive with a very nice waiter and good company, and then dragged my tired feet back onto the metro.

Instead of going straight home, I ended up going to Odéon and catching a late showing of Dark Shadows in a theater with a huge screen. While it had really awesome effects and was very playful about the dark topics it covered, it was not the best plot I’ve ever seen. This was only “ok” for me.

Tomorrow, I’m meeting up for brunch with three other former Sugarplums and who knows what the rest of the afternoon will bring!