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Hello Sunshine,
Hehehe
Sunday
So we ended up getting to Paris at around 2pm on Sunday afternoon. It was about quarter to three by the time we got to our hotel and as check in time hadn't come around, we decided to leave our bags and sat ourselves down in the hotel bar area. It was really nice. Giant love seats and armchairs all plush and comfortable. We ordered a tea to share and a mini cheese plate with bread. As well, when you order a drink, they give you a little platter with small bowls of organic chips, olives and nuts. It was all really delicious and considering the hotel we were in and considering how expensive it is to eat in Paris, we didn't pay that much for it. By the time we were done, it must have been 4:30. That's right. We sat there for almost 2 hours. We couldn't help it! It was so comfortable and as I hadn't seen my mom in 8 months, we had a lot to talk about. I'm surprised we didn't talk each other's ears off during this vacation XD. Either way, we finally decided to get ourselves together. We went up to the room, got ready and then went to the Champs Élysée (which, for those who don't know, is kind of a combination of the 5th avenue and Times square in NYC. It's a very famous street in Paris that is lined with stores. Mostly luxe (Louis Vuitton for example but they also have car dealerships now! Ferrari and that sort of thing though.) They also have a few restaurants and of these restaurants, there is La Durée.
La Durée is a bakery that is well known for their Macarons. Very, very well known. Everyday, hundreds of people line up to buy the sweets from this place. What I did not know is that La Durée is also a restaurant! So on Sunday night, we were walking down les Champs and we come across La Durée. My mom wanted me to stop so that we could take a picture for My uncle and aunt who are very knowledgeable when it comes to this sort of thing. (That said, on my mom's side of the family, we're pretty much all foodies to a certain degree...) So we look at the menu and mom goes “How about we eat here?” I give her a look like “haha yeah right.” but she seemed serious so we took a look at the menu. I hesitated (For reasons that some of you who know me well may guess) but mom insisted that it wasn't a big deal and so we went in. It took about half an hour to get a table since we didn't have a reservation so while we waited, we looked at all the desserts in the bakery.
We were seated in the upstairs portion and decided that we would order the menus. That is to say, I took one that was entrée and main meal and my mom got the same except with an added dessert + two macarons. We did it that way so that we could share a dessert and each get a macaron at the end. This was a very good choice and speaking of choices, I am very happy with my food choices. For the entrée, I ordered a cheese and truffle soufflé.
I had never had a soufflé in my life. I had never tasted Truffles. I am now a HUGE fan of both (I ate some more a couple days later and they confirmed my love for this mushroom... I think it's a mushroom...) mom ordered a scallop dish with a lemon sauce and some kind of ricotta cheese I believe. I tasted it and though it was good, it couldn't beat my soufflé. For the entrée, I took a fish dish (heh) and mom took a Coq-au-vin which translated to Chicken(male) cooked with wine. It's a difficult dish to explain so I'll let the photos do it for me :
For dessert, we took a giant macaron that had caramel and apples in the middle. The entire thing tasted like a candy apple and a caramel apple all at once but ten times better. It was delicious. As for our two macarons, I took an orange chocolate passion fruit one and my mom got a caramel sea salt one. They were both good but I preferred mine.
By the time we left, it must have been about midnight. Quarter to I think. We had been at the restaurant for at least 3 hours.
That's one thing that I noticed about this trip. It wasn't so much “run here, run there, attraction, attraction, attraction” but more relaxed. We walked around alot, sat in restaurants and cafés and just talked. We people watched too. Speaking of people watching, there was a very interesting group at the table next to us.
I guessed a group of Americans or Canadians from their accents. There were two men and two women. They had run the marathon earlier that day (which was 42km) and I guess they were celebrating with a nice meal. One of the men, who seemed to have asian roots, stood out to me in particular for one reason. As the group was leaving, he spoke to the waitress. Now, the entire meal, he had been speaking in english, laughing in english (yes, there are two different laughs. I'm not even kidding here.) and so I just assumed that if he spoke in French, you would hear that. However when he opened his mouth, perfect, flawless, no accent French came out.
...
Why in the world are there people who can speak both languages with no accent!? Unfair! Unfair I tell you! Oh cruel, cruel world...
And since he was also Asian, one can assume that he may have learned a third language. That is... really amazing. I told my mom that I want to be like him when I'm older. She looked at me and went “Well, you've got 15 years. Get going.” So I have 15 years to lose my English accent in French and learn at least passable Japanese. SuperAwesomeTeamGO! Haha, I think I could do it with work. Anything can be accomplished with work though, right? Right. Either way, the entire evening was very nice and after, we finished it with a walk down Les Champs again to find a subway and them took the Metro back to the hotel.
Monday.
We woke up and I was excited. The hotel we stayed at was celebrating it`s 100th anniversary so we had gotten a deal when booking + we had gotten breakfast included. I was looking forward to seeing how their breakfast buffet was.
I was not disappointed. We entered the room and sat down. I ordered hot chocolate, mom took tea. They brought us cups and a tea cup each (mini ones but still enough for 2/3 cups of each). Already, that was an adorable concept, I thought. The breakfast itself was also delicious. There were eggs, mini cakes, 5 different kinds of breads and 9 different kinds of jams. Nutella (which I only discovered on my last day dang it! >_<) then there was fruit, yogourts, 6 juice choices and a cereal bar. All set up in a very classy, chic way. It was lovely. Probably one of my favourite things about the trip was that breakfast XD It was an amazing way to start the day.
We went to Notre Dame on Monday and listened to the mass for awhile. Then I went to the top of the tower and took pictures of the gargoyles among other things. It's really amazing up there but you have to climb so many stairs. The stair climbing isn't a big deal but they were spiral staircases... I was dizzy by the end, that's for sure.
Once that was done, we hopped onto one of the tour buses and used that. Monday was pretty much used to walk around, take a look at the shops and use the tour buses. There isn't any one thing that stands out really except that it was chilly!
The last thing we did on Monday night was a cooking class. The teacher spoke both English and French so that was kind of cool. He owned a restaurant in Ireland and spent 10 years there so that's why. He also owned a restaurant in Paris that got a Michelin Star (which is very impressive, for those who don't know what that is.) he then sold his restaurant to teach people to cook. Another cool thing is that he met Gordon Ramsey. Ramsey is one of my favourite chefs so that was pretty cool. The funny / sad thing is that all night, I managed not to cut myself once on any knives then, as we sat down to eat, I pulled my chair closer, got my finger caught in it and sliced it.
Yeah. I was impressed. Except not.
Our menu was the following :
Hot Cold Asparagus with.... truffle oil! Haha! XD
Tuna and a vegetable... thing underneath. I almost want to call it a ratatouille but I'm not sure that that's what it is...
Homemade vanilla icecream and fried, seasoned strawberries.
Photo Pending
We headed back to the hotel after that.
Tuesday.
On Tuesday, we went to Shakespeare and Co, the oldest English book store in Paris. This is one of the places I really wanted to visit and I've wanted to see it for a couple years now. So I was really pleased and I got a bunch of pictures in there. I ended up buying a copy of the two Alice in Wonderland books with notes and explanations which is cool. One of the things I really love about this bookstore is that they let backpackers sleep there if they work for an hour or two during the day. I love that idea! And it's SUPER close to Notre Dame so it's placement is quite cool too.
Afterwards, we headed to the Paris Opera house and we had planned to take the tour but unfortunately, the inside was closed since the students were having a recital. Darn it! But I still ended up paying so that I could take a look around everywhere else. It's really amazing inside but I wish I could have gone into the actual opera hall. For those who are wondering why I wanted to go there, allow me to explain. The Paris Opera house, also known as the Paris Garnier is where the Phantom of the Opera takes place. That place is FILLED with mirrors which is neat because the book plays on mirror use very often.
Then, we finished our day at the Pantheon. The Pantheon is a giant cemetery, more or less. There are tombs filled with France's most important politicians, writers, singers, artists, philosophers among many other things. I took some pictures of my own personal favourites, Voltaire, Hugo and Zola.
We saw Virginie that night as she came to our hotel. We had drinks with her in the hotel bar and did the same thing as we'd done on Sunday afternoon. It was nice and I was glad to see Virginie who has been in Paris since the end of March for an internship. It was cool to see her in Paris too.
Wednesday
This was our last day in Paris and it was spent mostly walking. We hit up the Musee d'Orsay in the morning and it was funny because It was like deja vu. I actually remembered the inside of the museum. Quite impressive, I thought. What I hadn't known last time (or maybe I had been told and forgot... that's completely possible) is that the Musee had been an old train station but that the newer, longer trains couldn't fit. They had planned to destroy it but found another use for it instead. A much better one I think.
We headed back to the Champs Elysee after this and did a little Macaron shopping among other things. We stopped at the restaurant owned by a well known chef for lunch. He had opened a little cafe across from his main restaurant and so we decided to check it out. It was DELICIOUS. We shared a mini pizza and a noodle salad with, wait for it, Truffle! I adore Truffle now. Really. It's amazing.
We pretty much spent the rest of the day shopping and walking around. Honestly, this trip was not marked by events but rather just by time spent together. Earlier in the day for example, we ran into a truck that was advertising Vitamin Water. They had a game where you had to spin a wheel and you'd get a free water. They gave me two since I landed on the Superman option. It was sweeeet! Haha that made me think of Maddy. Anyways, it was just little things like that that made the trip great. Not all the attractions. It was a nice change.
That night, we had Sushi and on our way back to the hotel, ran into the Polish Embassy. There were a bunch of flowers and candles for the Prime Minister and all those who died in the plane crash a few weeks back now. It's really quite sad =[ But it's nice to see people paying their respects.
We also saw a group of roller bladers. It was a rollerblade gang I tell you! I told mom that one day I would join a rollerblade gang and rollerblade around Paris at 11:00pm at night with the Eiffle Tower light show shinning and blinking away in the background. I personally find this to be a very nice image.
This night was really upsetting for me because I knew it was my last night with my mom. It's hard, spending almost two weeks with someone who you haven't seen for eight months and then just like that, they're gone. That's how life is though I suppose.
Either way, I'm glad we had this trip together because it made me realize (which sounds silly) that I have so much to look forward to when I come home. I'm going to see friends and family who I haven't seen in almost a year (by then) and I think it'll make me appreciate everyone more. In fact, being away from people tends to do that. It's true when they say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Or... whatever the expression is, haha. ^^”
Thursday... oh Thursday.
We didn't do much on Thursday since it was the day mom left so we pretty much got up, enjoyed the breakfast and left the hotel. This is where my lovely adventures stuck in Paris begin. You can read about them here.
I hope you've enjoyed reading all about my awesometastical Paris adventures and I can't wait to see you all.
Love,
Olivia
Hehehe
Sunday
So we ended up getting to Paris at around 2pm on Sunday afternoon. It was about quarter to three by the time we got to our hotel and as check in time hadn't come around, we decided to leave our bags and sat ourselves down in the hotel bar area. It was really nice. Giant love seats and armchairs all plush and comfortable. We ordered a tea to share and a mini cheese plate with bread. As well, when you order a drink, they give you a little platter with small bowls of organic chips, olives and nuts. It was all really delicious and considering the hotel we were in and considering how expensive it is to eat in Paris, we didn't pay that much for it. By the time we were done, it must have been 4:30. That's right. We sat there for almost 2 hours. We couldn't help it! It was so comfortable and as I hadn't seen my mom in 8 months, we had a lot to talk about. I'm surprised we didn't talk each other's ears off during this vacation XD. Either way, we finally decided to get ourselves together. We went up to the room, got ready and then went to the Champs Élysée (which, for those who don't know, is kind of a combination of the 5th avenue and Times square in NYC. It's a very famous street in Paris that is lined with stores. Mostly luxe (Louis Vuitton for example but they also have car dealerships now! Ferrari and that sort of thing though.) They also have a few restaurants and of these restaurants, there is La Durée.
La Durée is a bakery that is well known for their Macarons. Very, very well known. Everyday, hundreds of people line up to buy the sweets from this place. What I did not know is that La Durée is also a restaurant! So on Sunday night, we were walking down les Champs and we come across La Durée. My mom wanted me to stop so that we could take a picture for My uncle and aunt who are very knowledgeable when it comes to this sort of thing. (That said, on my mom's side of the family, we're pretty much all foodies to a certain degree...) So we look at the menu and mom goes “How about we eat here?” I give her a look like “haha yeah right.” but she seemed serious so we took a look at the menu. I hesitated (For reasons that some of you who know me well may guess) but mom insisted that it wasn't a big deal and so we went in. It took about half an hour to get a table since we didn't have a reservation so while we waited, we looked at all the desserts in the bakery.
We were seated in the upstairs portion and decided that we would order the menus. That is to say, I took one that was entrée and main meal and my mom got the same except with an added dessert + two macarons. We did it that way so that we could share a dessert and each get a macaron at the end. This was a very good choice and speaking of choices, I am very happy with my food choices. For the entrée, I ordered a cheese and truffle soufflé.
I had never had a soufflé in my life. I had never tasted Truffles. I am now a HUGE fan of both (I ate some more a couple days later and they confirmed my love for this mushroom... I think it's a mushroom...) mom ordered a scallop dish with a lemon sauce and some kind of ricotta cheese I believe. I tasted it and though it was good, it couldn't beat my soufflé. For the entrée, I took a fish dish (heh) and mom took a Coq-au-vin which translated to Chicken(male) cooked with wine. It's a difficult dish to explain so I'll let the photos do it for me :
For dessert, we took a giant macaron that had caramel and apples in the middle. The entire thing tasted like a candy apple and a caramel apple all at once but ten times better. It was delicious. As for our two macarons, I took an orange chocolate passion fruit one and my mom got a caramel sea salt one. They were both good but I preferred mine.
By the time we left, it must have been about midnight. Quarter to I think. We had been at the restaurant for at least 3 hours.
That's one thing that I noticed about this trip. It wasn't so much “run here, run there, attraction, attraction, attraction” but more relaxed. We walked around alot, sat in restaurants and cafés and just talked. We people watched too. Speaking of people watching, there was a very interesting group at the table next to us.
I guessed a group of Americans or Canadians from their accents. There were two men and two women. They had run the marathon earlier that day (which was 42km) and I guess they were celebrating with a nice meal. One of the men, who seemed to have asian roots, stood out to me in particular for one reason. As the group was leaving, he spoke to the waitress. Now, the entire meal, he had been speaking in english, laughing in english (yes, there are two different laughs. I'm not even kidding here.) and so I just assumed that if he spoke in French, you would hear that. However when he opened his mouth, perfect, flawless, no accent French came out.
...
Why in the world are there people who can speak both languages with no accent!? Unfair! Unfair I tell you! Oh cruel, cruel world...
And since he was also Asian, one can assume that he may have learned a third language. That is... really amazing. I told my mom that I want to be like him when I'm older. She looked at me and went “Well, you've got 15 years. Get going.” So I have 15 years to lose my English accent in French and learn at least passable Japanese. SuperAwesomeTeamGO! Haha, I think I could do it with work. Anything can be accomplished with work though, right? Right. Either way, the entire evening was very nice and after, we finished it with a walk down Les Champs again to find a subway and them took the Metro back to the hotel.
Monday.
We woke up and I was excited. The hotel we stayed at was celebrating it`s 100th anniversary so we had gotten a deal when booking + we had gotten breakfast included. I was looking forward to seeing how their breakfast buffet was.
I was not disappointed. We entered the room and sat down. I ordered hot chocolate, mom took tea. They brought us cups and a tea cup each (mini ones but still enough for 2/3 cups of each). Already, that was an adorable concept, I thought. The breakfast itself was also delicious. There were eggs, mini cakes, 5 different kinds of breads and 9 different kinds of jams. Nutella (which I only discovered on my last day dang it! >_<) then there was fruit, yogourts, 6 juice choices and a cereal bar. All set up in a very classy, chic way. It was lovely. Probably one of my favourite things about the trip was that breakfast XD It was an amazing way to start the day.
We went to Notre Dame on Monday and listened to the mass for awhile. Then I went to the top of the tower and took pictures of the gargoyles among other things. It's really amazing up there but you have to climb so many stairs. The stair climbing isn't a big deal but they were spiral staircases... I was dizzy by the end, that's for sure.
Once that was done, we hopped onto one of the tour buses and used that. Monday was pretty much used to walk around, take a look at the shops and use the tour buses. There isn't any one thing that stands out really except that it was chilly!
The last thing we did on Monday night was a cooking class. The teacher spoke both English and French so that was kind of cool. He owned a restaurant in Ireland and spent 10 years there so that's why. He also owned a restaurant in Paris that got a Michelin Star (which is very impressive, for those who don't know what that is.) he then sold his restaurant to teach people to cook. Another cool thing is that he met Gordon Ramsey. Ramsey is one of my favourite chefs so that was pretty cool. The funny / sad thing is that all night, I managed not to cut myself once on any knives then, as we sat down to eat, I pulled my chair closer, got my finger caught in it and sliced it.
Yeah. I was impressed. Except not.
Our menu was the following :
Hot Cold Asparagus with.... truffle oil! Haha! XD
Tuna and a vegetable... thing underneath. I almost want to call it a ratatouille but I'm not sure that that's what it is...
Homemade vanilla icecream and fried, seasoned strawberries.
Photo Pending
We headed back to the hotel after that.
Tuesday.
On Tuesday, we went to Shakespeare and Co, the oldest English book store in Paris. This is one of the places I really wanted to visit and I've wanted to see it for a couple years now. So I was really pleased and I got a bunch of pictures in there. I ended up buying a copy of the two Alice in Wonderland books with notes and explanations which is cool. One of the things I really love about this bookstore is that they let backpackers sleep there if they work for an hour or two during the day. I love that idea! And it's SUPER close to Notre Dame so it's placement is quite cool too.
Afterwards, we headed to the Paris Opera house and we had planned to take the tour but unfortunately, the inside was closed since the students were having a recital. Darn it! But I still ended up paying so that I could take a look around everywhere else. It's really amazing inside but I wish I could have gone into the actual opera hall. For those who are wondering why I wanted to go there, allow me to explain. The Paris Opera house, also known as the Paris Garnier is where the Phantom of the Opera takes place. That place is FILLED with mirrors which is neat because the book plays on mirror use very often.
Then, we finished our day at the Pantheon. The Pantheon is a giant cemetery, more or less. There are tombs filled with France's most important politicians, writers, singers, artists, philosophers among many other things. I took some pictures of my own personal favourites, Voltaire, Hugo and Zola.
We saw Virginie that night as she came to our hotel. We had drinks with her in the hotel bar and did the same thing as we'd done on Sunday afternoon. It was nice and I was glad to see Virginie who has been in Paris since the end of March for an internship. It was cool to see her in Paris too.
Wednesday
This was our last day in Paris and it was spent mostly walking. We hit up the Musee d'Orsay in the morning and it was funny because It was like deja vu. I actually remembered the inside of the museum. Quite impressive, I thought. What I hadn't known last time (or maybe I had been told and forgot... that's completely possible) is that the Musee had been an old train station but that the newer, longer trains couldn't fit. They had planned to destroy it but found another use for it instead. A much better one I think.
We headed back to the Champs Elysee after this and did a little Macaron shopping among other things. We stopped at the restaurant owned by a well known chef for lunch. He had opened a little cafe across from his main restaurant and so we decided to check it out. It was DELICIOUS. We shared a mini pizza and a noodle salad with, wait for it, Truffle! I adore Truffle now. Really. It's amazing.
We pretty much spent the rest of the day shopping and walking around. Honestly, this trip was not marked by events but rather just by time spent together. Earlier in the day for example, we ran into a truck that was advertising Vitamin Water. They had a game where you had to spin a wheel and you'd get a free water. They gave me two since I landed on the Superman option. It was sweeeet! Haha that made me think of Maddy. Anyways, it was just little things like that that made the trip great. Not all the attractions. It was a nice change.
That night, we had Sushi and on our way back to the hotel, ran into the Polish Embassy. There were a bunch of flowers and candles for the Prime Minister and all those who died in the plane crash a few weeks back now. It's really quite sad =[ But it's nice to see people paying their respects.
We also saw a group of roller bladers. It was a rollerblade gang I tell you! I told mom that one day I would join a rollerblade gang and rollerblade around Paris at 11:00pm at night with the Eiffle Tower light show shinning and blinking away in the background. I personally find this to be a very nice image.
This night was really upsetting for me because I knew it was my last night with my mom. It's hard, spending almost two weeks with someone who you haven't seen for eight months and then just like that, they're gone. That's how life is though I suppose.
Either way, I'm glad we had this trip together because it made me realize (which sounds silly) that I have so much to look forward to when I come home. I'm going to see friends and family who I haven't seen in almost a year (by then) and I think it'll make me appreciate everyone more. In fact, being away from people tends to do that. It's true when they say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Or... whatever the expression is, haha. ^^”
Thursday... oh Thursday.
We didn't do much on Thursday since it was the day mom left so we pretty much got up, enjoyed the breakfast and left the hotel. This is where my lovely adventures stuck in Paris begin. You can read about them here.
I hope you've enjoyed reading all about my awesometastical Paris adventures and I can't wait to see you all.
Love,
Olivia
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