Chocolate Picnic

I brought back some scrumptious homemade chocolates from Belgium and then we ate them.

They tasted like victory.

18!

Happy birthday Ash! I hope you have the best day and I'll see you in one week!

Date Night

Our date consisted of a galette and crêpe dinner at Breizh café in the Marais followed by a boat ride on the Seine. Meggie, thank you for pursuing the boat tour despite my being... difficult. I'm glad your perseverance prevailed.

Galette with puréed cod, chorizo, gruyère, and greens.

Crêpe with bananas, caramel, and vanilla ice cream.

Crêpe with bananas, chocolate, and vanilla ice cream.

Breizh café, 109 rue Vieille du Temple

The literal translation of bauteux-mouches is "fly-boats."
Curiouser and curiouser.

Sceaux

Sceaux is a banlieue of Paris, but not a banlieue in the sense of La Haine (my go-to banlieue reference). When Meg and I visited, we walked down the main streets of Sceaux, visited Jean Baptiste-Colbert's château, ambled through the arboretum, and explored l'Île Verte. Sceaux is great. Sort of like a modern version of Belle's town in Beauty and the Beast. Thank you Théo for showing us around!

Arboretum.

The most amazing roots.

Tree fingers.

8 feet tall reeds.

Look what I found.

Rad bench.

l'Île Verte.

Diners Are Forever

My love for pancakes, burgers, shakes, waffles and fries is forever.

What a gal.

Yum! Pristine.

So fluffy. So light.

The cheeseburger ate my face.

Les Écoles

Hi to my family! I wanted you to see where I attended school. I took these a bit ago, but I was nervous to post them until I got my results. I believe in jinxes, clearly.

The Jardin du Luxembourg, which was right in between my two schools and served as my lunch-yard.

Sailboats in the fountain!

The walk to school.

Michelet, for Art history and Archeology License 3.

Had to pass by this guy all the time. Hmmm... not too nice.

My XIXe T.D. classroom (T.D. stands for travaux dirigés and it's comparable to a section in the States).

The park right next to Michelet.

Sorbonne.

The Sorbonne courtyard.

The chapel and construction. Construction sites follow me everywhere!

The amphitheater where I had my French lit lecture. There normally wasn't a piano in there.

Consumption

The soldes started this week in Paris. Early on Wednesday morning when I was waiting for my bus out by the Lafayette department stores I promised myself, for both financial and physical reasons, that I would not be participating in soldes shopping when I witnessed the lines (i.e. formless gaggles of people) waiting to be the first to reap the benefits of reduced prices. That resolution was unsurprisingly broken four hours later when I persuaded Meg to come with me to the APC and Merci soldes.

111 Boulevard Beaumarchais, Paris, 75003

I love Merci so much. It is a lovely, spacious store filled with beautiful clothes, household items, and paper goods. They also have two pretty cafes, a cherry bread pudding that I am dying to try, and a swell restaurant downstairs. I would definitely add Merci to any Paris shopping list.

I scored a sweater, a flannel shirt, and a groovy pencil pack.

Much fatigued by our shopping excursion and the extreme heat, Meg and I sought energy from Speculoos cookies, arguably our favorite French snack, which isn't even French. Go figure. These crack cookies are so delicious. They've the addictiveness of Thin Mints sans the mint and taste like brown sugar, cinnammon, cloves, nutmeg, and cardamom. I don't know why I am blathering on about them because you can get them in the States, but probably not in the impressive four-pack. Thank goodness I discovered them at the end of the semester!

Boom.

As we are committed to feasting like kings, we obviously had to buy the Speculoos spread when we learned of its existence.

On a baguette. Delightful.

Double the fun.