Week 6: Paris? Oui oui!

9/30/19 – The most exciting thing I did on Monday was getting dinner with my roommates and a friend (Mondays are never too exciting). I got the truffle pasta, which was amazing of course, and tiramisu for dessert. I surprisingly like tiramisu, even though I don’t like coffee. This one was especially amazing and creamy (yumm).

10/1/19 – Tuesday I stopped at I Fratellini again to try a different panini. This time I got the ham with truffle cream. Oh my god, it was so good. I think it might be my favorite panini place, even over the one that is really famous with long lines. After, I stopped for a quick stracciatella gelato at Grom.

10/2/19 – Wednesday I had to work on a project for my consumer behavior class where I had to examine Italian women shopping. I felt so awkward watching people shop and super creepy, but it had to be done.

10/3/19 – On Thursday the group of girls and I planned for Paris. There were 6 of us total, me, Hannah, and 4 girls we met on our Amalfi trip from Elon University. After we got dinner at a seafood place. They had pasta with crab, which is what I got. It was pretty good, but a lot of work getting it out of the shell, like crab always is.

10/4/19 – Woke up at 4am Friday to hop on my plane to Paris. I guess it’s gonna be another weekend without sleep. We got there 18 minutes before boarding, and I could feel my dad panicking from across the ocean. Luckily, Florence has a super small airport, and we were there in plenty of time. We landed in Paris, and headed to the hostel. It just took a few train rides, and we were there. We stored our luggage and ventured out for the morning. We had a lot of things to cross off the list we planned, so we had to get on it. To start we went to the area surrounding Notre Dame. Everyone was starving, so we grabbed a bite at a creperie. I got the Croque Madame, which is basically an open-top, ham and cheese sandwich with a fried egg (one of my favorite French dishes). Then we stumbled upon the Church of Saint Sulpice and its fountain. We continued roaming around until we found the Luxembourg gardens and palace, which were stunning. I was surprised there were still flowers blooming, since it was only about 60 degrees in Paris, while we were there. Next, we wanted to see the Pantheon, which is just up from the gardens. There was also an ornate church behind it I took a picture of that was super cool. When we got our pictures, we headed across the river to Notre Dame. It is completely under construction right now, since the fire. When I was in Paris earlier this spring, it had caught on fire a week before I got there. I’ve never seen it fully intact, but I can’t even imagine. It is such a detailed church and it’s huge, too. We then took a walk down the river to see the Lourve. We decided not to go inside, since some of us had been there and it would take so long. We did take the iconic picture of us touching the top of the pyramid, though. It was time to check into the hostel at that point, so we strolled through the Tulleries Gardens (my fav), to the train station. We stopped on the way to grab some macaroons from Pierre Herme. They were a bit pricey, but I got a cute Paris tin and they were 100% the best macaroons I’ve had. My favorite was the vanilla, of course (if you know me, you know I love vanilla everything and some things just never change). We were all pretty exhausted when we got back to the hostel, so we decided to take it easy that night. Everyone changed for dinner, and we headed to get a sunset view of the city from the top of the Galleries Lafayette. I was excited to go inside it, because that was one thing I didn’t have time to do with my family in May. The ceiling was definitely a site to see, and the store in general was like a paradise to me (just a little bit of an expensive paradise). When we got to the roof, the view was great and you could see everything. After a few pictures, we headed to dinner. We ended up at a spot eventually, and I ordered the rib eye with peppercorn sauce. Half of the girls shared escargot, but I still couldn’t get myself to try it. Something about snails gives me the heebie-jeebies. Maybe someday I’ll try it. We headed straight to bed after, so we could hopefully move tomorrow. We ended up getting 31,000 steps that day, which might honestly be a record for my life. At least I worked off enough calories to finish my macaroons.

10/5/19 – We woke up bright and early to get to the catacombs Saturday morning. Unfortunately, we didn’t think about ordering skip the line tickets the day before. We got there and the line was about 2 hours long, plus it was raining, so we decided to skip it and come back the next morning. We instead went to Musee d’Orsay, which has artists like Van Gogh, Monet, and Renoir. Monet is my favorite artist, and they had a lot of his work, which I loved. After that, we searched the area for lunch. We found a café where I got the roast beef sandwich. After we finished up lunch, we made our way to the Arc de Triomphe. We climbed to the top and got a great view. Once we got the pictures we wanted, we headed down the Champs Elysees and to the Eiffel Tower. We only had a few seconds by the Eiffel tower, since we had booked a Seine river tour. The tour took us about 30 minutes up and down the river, showing us a lot of the iconic places like Notre Dame, the Lourve, and such. Even though we had seen a lot of these, it was fun to be on a boat and see them from the river view. When we finished the boat ride, we were on a time crunch to get to dinner. We had a reservation at a fun, fondue place we had heard about through friends and seen on Instagram. When we got there, there was a line out the door before the restaurant even opened. Luckily we didn’t have to wait with our reservation. We got in the restaurant and it was literally a 20ft by 15ft room packed with people. It was so tight, you literally had to climb on top of the tables to get out of your chair. It’s unique and famous because they give you wine in a glass baby bottle. I’m honestly not sure why, and it’s weird and random, but fun! The fondue was also really fun. They didn’t have only cheese, but also meat. Basically they would give you a bowl of raw beef and you had to cook it yourself in a broth they provide. So instead of cheese it’s a broth. It was a ton of fun, though and tasted really good. It will definitely be something I remember for a long time. After dinner, we were walking to try and find some macaroons for dessert, but everywhere was closed (since everything in Paris closes at like 7pm, ugh). While we were walking to the train station, one of the girls realized she couldn’t find her wallet. So we spent some time retracing steps and going back to the restaurant to look, but didn’t find it. We assumed she had been pick-pocketed. We continued on with our night by heading to the Eiffel tower to see it light up at night. We got there and took a seat on the lawn and watched it sparkle. It was a lot of fun and relaxing just getting to watch it without a lot of people around. While we were sitting there, we got a call from the restaurant that they found her wallet. Two girls headed back to get it, and the rest of us headed home.

10/6/19 – Sunday morning we wake up to go explore Montmartre. However, a different girl that went back to get the wallet realized she had lost her phone. We tracked it to the location it was at on find my iPhone and went to go find it. Having no idea where it could be, we searched around the area and in the subway. We finally tried to “ping” it, and someone called us a little later saying he found it. The guy was so nice he had found it, brought it to his apartment, and charged it for her waiting for someone to come for it. Thank god we found it so we could move on with our day. Unfortunately, we couldn't get to the catacombs, but I guess that's something I can do the next time I'm in Paris. :) So, we headed to Montmartre. After being here twice, I can say Montmartre is my favorite part of Paris (I’m tempted to move there). It is the artsy district, where artists like Van Gogh, Monet, Picasso, Renoir, Dali, etc., either lived or had studios. It has continued to be a place for starving artists, like them. It is so cute and very old Paris. We did some shopping in some boutiques around town and just explored the streets. For lunch, we had reservations for a place called Le Maison Rose. It first opened back in the 1800s and is still around. It’s the cutest little pink house, turned restaurant with antique décor. I ordered a sausage tray to begin, and the plate de jour, which was a meatball dish. It was some of the best food I have had abroad. It tasted just like a home cooked meal, which was just what I think we all needed. We shared a couple of desserts, one was a meringue, one was carrot cake, and one was some fig dish. I’ve never tried fig, so I took a bite and decided I will never be a fig girl. But, the meringue was amazing. I feel like in the States I’m not a big meringue girl, since it is so sugary, but this was light and creamy tasting. After lunch, we walked around the main square of Montmartre, where local artists set up their work and sell it. I bought a watercolor of the Eiffel Tower there last time. This time I got a mini watercolor with pen drawn on top. We also grabbed some more macaroons. These were good, but not quite as good as the first. Next we walked over to the Sacre Coeur, which is a large basilica at the top of Montmartre. We were running out of time, so for one last time we headed to the Eiffel tower (since we hadn’t seen it much during the day). As soon as we got there, we picked up a crepe from a stand and ate it in the grass in front of the tower. The view was amazing, and the park was quiet. At about 6pm we left to pick up our stuff and head to the airport. We got back to Florence at midnight and I’m looking forward to a nap tomorrow.