Le Parc aux Cerfs and the walk back

So I'll preface this post by informing all of you that Blogger is being evil and not letting me post pictures right now, so I can't show you all the gorgeous photos that I took yesterday and today until their system gets unclogged or I find a better way to upload photos.

That being said....

It was a beautiful day in Paris. So beautiful that I wore a sundress. Word on the street is that this will be the kindest winter in Paris yet -- they expect the sun to stay out until December. Wishful thinking or not, this brief optimism turned Paris into a sea of smiling sunbathing hopefuls stocking up on what could be the last few summer rays.

I, too, wanted my share of sun exposure, so I went over to the jardin de luxembourg to hang out with Balzac for 30 minutes before my lunch at the Parc aux Cerfs on rue Vavin. The jardin was gorgeous -- they were having a "honey festival" and it was like the sweetness rubbed off on all the parisians around me. Everyone was so happy -- it's funny how the sun can do that to you.

When it was time to go to the Parc aux Cerfs, I gathered up my appetite and met my group at the door. The Parc aux Cerfs is a great little place on rue Vavin that, like La Closerie de Lilas and Le Selet, was frequented by artists and writers when Montparnasse was where you went to be an artist or writer. The Parc aux Cerfs remembers it's custom of letting its talented customers pay via painting or drawing by letting its current customers draw on the paper tablecloths (except, we don't get exempt from paying). Luckily SLC was paying for our food today (a 35 EUR meal was a nice way to end orientation), so we were able to indulge like the artists of another age.

The first course was a choice between a cucumber soup with goat cheese, a tomme (a type of cheese) and candied cranberry salad, or a poached salmon. I chose the Tomme salad and was very happy. I think this was actualy my favorite course, though I didn't get a picture of how beautiful the cheese was displayed before I gobbled the whole thing up.

Next came the plat: a choice of chicken, salmon or duck. I chose le canard and was very pleased. The sauce was a lavendar sauce, but had a sweet citris like tang to it that enriched both the duck and the mound of snap peas it was sitting on. I must say, the French really know how to cook a duck. Maybe they put it in butter -- who knows -- but it melts in your mouth.

For dessert, we could have a berry dish, a orange crême brulée or a chocolate molten cake with salted caramel ice cream. Being torn between the chocolate cake and the crême brulée, I remembered that I didn't have an oven and should probably eat cake at every opportunity I get. Plus, it sounded to perfect with the glass of red wine I was having. I was not dissapointed.


I must say that the crême brulée looked very good, too, though. It was not a little dinky thing like I've found at most restaurants. It was pretty sizable. I would try it should I ever go back to le Parc aux cerfs.

The meal finished, like any good French meal, with a café. I took mine décaf, not wanting to be wired for the rest of the beautiful afternoon.

Taking advantage of the clear skies, I walked home via a slightly different route today. I wanted to go to the île st. louis, which is the island on the Seine next to the île de la cité (the one with Notre Dame and all the fancy stuff). My new route took me along the Seine and gave me an incredible view -- all the parisians were out on the seine like it was a beach. What a great idea for a cheap lunch, I thought, noticing a couple sharing a picnic on the left bank.

Being as hot as it was, I wasn't surpised to find that many parisians were out looking for ice cream, but I had no idea how many of them would wait in ridiculously long lines for what seemed to be the most popular ice cream label on the île. Many cafés and stores boasted this label on the canapies and I noticed that the ones who did not serve this type of ice cream had literally no customers.

The ice cream seemed kind of pricey to me at 2 EUR a boule (scoop), but for the ice cream connoisseur, this could be the best deal of a lifetime. I think that's about the same price as a coldstones in the US, right? The prices also get cheaper if you buy larger quantities, so if you really like the stuff, it might fit well into a student's budget.

My trip to the cute little island was a great, but I found an even more exciting pitstop on the other side of the river -- a flea market! It was like all of the 4th was having a yard sale right along the Seine. I looked around for a while and talked to some French people before asking someone how often this happens. Apparently, for one sunday a month, you can pick up someone else's parisan treasures on the cheap! A great idea for souveniers. They also have cheap clothes and anything else you might expect at a yard sale. I highly reccomend it.

I finally got my full belly and tired feet home at about 5pm, and began to work on my homework. Classes start tomorrow!

Total Damages today:
0,00 EUR!

An afternoon at la Tour Eiffel et l'école militaire

Woke up at noon and got going around 2. Taylor and I headed over to the local boulangerie for a fresh baguette with the intention of heading over the Tour Eiffel for a picnic with 2 other friends. Except when we walked over to the local fromagère, we noticed that he, like many other stores in Paris, was closed on Sunday. We thought that the Monoprix would be open, so we walked down there, but it was closed, too. When we were looking at the city map to figure out where to head next, out of nowhere came a flash mob of roller-bladers folled by ambulences and police men. There must have been 3,000 of them!

In fact there were about 3,000, or so the man who explained the situation to us estimated. He told us that the group sometimes reaches 10,000 bladers and that they regularly skate from the Bastille all around Paris every Sunday. Apparently the French police has a special division for police officers on roller-blades and they, along with ambulances, and police vehicles, escort this massive group every week. We were so excited and decided that we would have to try this before leaving Paris.

We hopped on the subway, having already eaten our baguette (oops!), and headed toward the Tour Eiffel. When we got off the subway, it was already in plain sight -- a massive beast sticking out of the trees. We let out our usual girlish screams before preceding to the tower's base.

It was a beautiful day in Paris, and so we headed out the lawn to enjoy the sun and sights. On our way, however, we were bombarded by about 30 Parisians dressed in what seemed to be body armour. They were passing out nerf guns and pulled us over, asking if we wanted to join in their game. I decided to stay with our bags and take photos but encouraged Taylor to take part in the fun! She jumped right in and seemed to have a blast! Nerf guns under the Eiffel Tower? Only in Paris.

We finally met up with the 2 other girls and hung out for a while at the park just in front of the tower. We were slightly uncomfortable with the sheer number of couples publicly displaying their affection (and perhaps procreating? sometimes it looked that intense), but we understood that this was a beautiful day in Paris and romance was in the air -- there were even 4 couples getting married.

At the end of the day, we saw a group of cyclists coming into the lawn who said that they just finished a charity ride all the way from London. Two of them were on a bicycle-built-for-two and came dressed as batman and robin. We congratulated them as they popped open a bottle of champagne in front of the Tower.

The evening came to a close as Taylor and I returned to our apt. and cooked up some dinner (spaghetti with meat and tomatoes in olive oil, and peas on the side). For dessert: Ben and Jerry's chocolate chip cookie dough. A day well spent with no money spent.

Total Damages:

0,00 EUR