Sunday was of course our champs elysees day but it was ten times more special this week because we went to la duree! La duree is this famous macaroon shop in paris and I know you’re thinking of those mountain shaped coconut macaroons back home but don’t. French macaroons don’t even have coconut in them I don’t think, they’re basically two amazingly perfect moist cookies with a more amazingly perfect frosting/ganache in between. We had to wait in a really long line full of tourists but of course it was worth it.
I had tried it for the first time last year when I was here but I had forgotten how good these little suckers really are. They are about the size of an oreo but cost 1.50 euros each. Craziness I know but trust me they are worth every penny. Dorene and I decided to go wild and order four each so that we can get them in a cute little box.
They have 17 flavors and our goal is to try all of them by the time we leave. This is a big deal to me because usually when I like a certain flavor I’m not one to change it up but I think it would be a pretty cool accomplishment. That day we both ordered vanilla and raspberry, she got chocolate and café and I got pistachio and caramel. The raspberry didn’t really do it for me, not that it was bad it just wasn’t as good as the caramel. Mmm the caramel.
The rest of the week was pretty normal, paris normal that is. On tuesday we went to this random museum in france with our fashion in france teacher. He used to work in that museum so we basically had our very own very boring tour guide. The coolest part was getting to see this painting he had shown us before in class as well as a pair of marie antoinette’s actual shoes which were tiny. She would have definitely needed to buy a size three if she were alive today.
On wednesday we went to the musee maxim’s with our contemporary art class which was awesome. Maxim’s is a very posh and very expensive resturant in france, think 200 euros a person for one meal but they have this little museum right next the cafe that is full of art nouveau, a certain style of art we learned about in class.
We had a really funny tour guide who took us all over the museum telling us about the history of maxim’s as well as showing us the art nouveau pieces. Turns out I’m a fan of art nouveau because it is not really art but more just furniture that looks really cool. He showed us the “most famous celebrity in the world’s” hand mirror and held it up for all the girls to look into. I can’t remember her name right now but this lady was known all over the world before any sort of media existed, just a newspaper or two. You would think that I would have remembered her name but it’s late and I’m speed writing so I’m cutting myself some slack.
The best joke he told all day was about ga ga gabor. Apparently she used to come to maxim’s all the time and was overheard saying she’s a good housekeeper, as in she’s had nine husbands and every time she got divorced she got to keep the house. I just realized that that was the worst retelling of a joke but it was hilarious at the time. My favorite thing from the museum was a caricature that featured coco chanel, another regular visitor at maxim’s.
At the end of the tour we were taken into the actual restaurant area where I felt the need to take a photo in because well let’s face it, I might never get to go back.
Thursday, today, yay can’t believe I’m finally talking about today, was beyond boring. I finally got my grammar book that I’ve been looking for all over paris today. It was the last copy and I basically ran towards it and made such a scene that the guy who worked there laughed out loud. What he doesn’t know is that I had visited that book store five times in the past two weeks looking for this stupid book, so the laugh is really on him, kinda I guess maybe not. By the way please notice how dorene's my PUH in the picture below...personal umbrella holder.
I just pretty much finished packing and have been typing nonstop since trying to finish this blog entry so that I keep my word of telling everyone where I’m going for fall break. It might not be super exciting anymore since I kept everyone in suspense but I’m still excited. So for the next ten days I will be globetrotting to madrid, lisbon, barcelona and then nice with a day trip to monaco. Our whole goal was to get in multiple cities and countries in the short amount of time that we are here.
We are spending two nights in madrid, two nights in lisbon, three nights in barcelona and three nights in nice. We are flying everywhere except taking a train back to paris from nice. The flights back were ridiculously expensive and I’m actually kind of excited to see the french countryside via train. It is now 11pm and we’re leaving our house at 5:30am tomorrow so I’m going to go attempt to fall asleep. I will probably blog via blackberry while I am there but don’t expect the same fabulous quality blogs that you’ve become accustomed to. Also don’t expect any pictures. Until november, ciao amigos! (Dorene and I know about as much spanish as the chihuahua from the taco bell commercials so this shall be very interesting!)
ciao, and amigo are 2 different languages <3
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