#4. Indulge in crepes and champagne in Paris

Nutella crepe. Champagne and strawberries. Boom.

Ditto the first line of my last posting: I've been bad at blogging since graduation. I blame it on the fact that, between putting about 3,000 miles on my car and a handful of plane flights, I have barely been home. I'll be better, I promise, because I've actually accomplished quite a few of those things over there on the right, and I'm excited to write about them.


So...Paris. Lovely, charming, magical, romantic, exciting, devastatingly beautiful, mysterious, sensational Paris. Putting this on my list was a major, major move, because I honestly can't believe I spent over 29 and a half years never having experienced it. It was amazing.


Rather than get into the day-by-day, I thought I'd just write a little bit about my overall experience. If I find myself particularly inspired (or bored) one day, I might write about some of the specific stuff we did. But when I described what I wanted our trip to Paris to be, I think the most common thing I said was: "I just want to be in Paris." Meaning, rather than hustle ourselves around with an itinerary, I wanted to have the tourist-y stuff we did sort of fit into the bigger picture of walking around, exploring, just existing in Paris. And I think we managed to accomplish that quite well.

Yo, that thing looks familiar.

First off, I must give a special shout-out to my travel companion, Andrew. From introducing me to my first (but not last) Lauduree macaroon to simultaneously falling asleep on our Seine boat cruise to accidentally breaking a tacky plastic snow globe at a Champs Elysee gift shop, we laughed about everything. Our jet-lag induced napping habits may not have been in sync, but our level of desire for French carbohydrates sure was, and that's really all that mattered.


In thinking back to my impressions of Paris, I think of one word: beauty. Our apartment in the Marais, with its carved wooden ceilings and windowed doors with a view of the neighborhood below, was beautiful. The French men and women sitting outdoors at the cafe next door to our apartment were beautiful -- just looking at them made me feel tragically unfashionable and uncultured. The architecture was beautiful, and I'm not just talking about places like Sacre Coeur or the Eiffel Tower (which are, of course, beautiful). I'm talking about the normal apartment buildings all over the city, the bouquinistes lining the banks of the Seine, the narrow alleys in Ile St. Louis, the Metro station in Montmartre. The food was beautiful (and delicious -- more about that later). Hell, even the graffiti in Paris was beautiful. 

Sacre Coeur. Way pretty.

The other highlight of Paris was, obviously, the food. A tip I got from several friends before we left was not to waste money on crepes at restaurants, to just buy them from street vendors, because those were the best anyway. You guys were not kidding. Andrew and I made a point -- nay, had a mission -- to eat at least one crepe per day. I think the best one I had was from a jambon et fromage one from a cart across the street from Notre Dame, that I devoured shortly before climbing the 382 marble steps to the very top of the cathedral (definitely, definitely worth doing). As I mentioned before, the Lauduree macarons were SO GOOD, and a must-have (even though they've now ventured State-side). Berthillon ice cream was unreal -- we made the trip to the outpost on Ile St. Louis, even though it seems like a lot of other places sell it. The truffled cashews we got at the Bon Marche food market were probably the best single item of food I've ever eaten. And I'd without hesitation recommend Hotel du Nord for a meal. Andrew and I enjoyed our last meal in Paris here, at the recommendation of several of his friends, and it didn't disappoint. The food was great, but beyond that, the atmosphere was stellar. It was one of the warmest (in disposition, not temperature), most charming and lovely places I've ever been. Plus, the waitstaff was way hot.

Great reason to make the climb up Notre Dame:
this dude, up close and personal.

The picture of me with my crepe up above was taken on our 2nd to last night, when we made the long trek from the Marais over to the Arc de Triomphe. I told Andrew on the walk over that, when I came up with this list item many months ago on my couch with Renee, I had this picture in my head of enjoying my crepe and champagne at a cafe on the Champs Elysee, with a view of the Arc. He was happy to indulge me, and even though our particular cafe was tented and thus our view was limited, and even though the glass of straight champagne I'd imagined was replaced with some champagne/strawberry puree concoction that the waiter promised me was better, it was perfect. I spent the whole trip thinking about how lucky I was to be in this amazing city; but that particular evening at that cafe, I felt that sentimental, sometimes silly, but always warm-fuzzy feeling of pride for having an idea -- no matter how big or small -- and making it happen.

Lauduree: I want to go (back) to there.

The other thing I loved doing in Paris -- and something I must eternally thank Andrew for being so patient with me about -- was photographing stuff. And by stuff, I mean EVERYTHING. I think all told, I took about 680 pictures in a 4 day time span, about 70 of which I uploaded on my Flickr page. As the fashion industry has shown us, beautiful things photograph easily, and I found Paris to be no exception. I hear the "it's not the camera, it's the photographer" adage a lot, but in the case of photographing Paris I'd say, "it's not the photographer, it's the city". I wish I'd brought my tripod (nerd alert!) to have really captured the "lights" part of the City of Lights, but hey, a hankering for some night photography is as good a reason to go back as any, right?


Okay, I am beginning to realize I could probably write 15 more of these about my trip, but I'm going to stop myself for now. I'll conclude by saying this: to everyone who made suggestions, thank you so much. We took a lot of them. And to everyone who is as captivated by Paris as I now am, or who wants to be: I'm ready to go back.

(Also, one last shout out to our apartments' proprietor, Amandine, who not only helped us with this amazing apartment, but also had fresh croissants, pain au chocolat, baguettes and wine waiting for us after a loooong overnight flight. She's got a pretty cool business going in Paris, so if you have occasion to go, definitely check her website out.)