Paris (Part IV)

And just a little bit more...

We went up to the Sacre Coeur for Bastille Day fireworks. It's not the Eiffel Tower spectacle, but I'm so glad we made that decision. People IN THE AUDIENCE had the handheld versions of the big-time fireworks, and they burst just overhead. It was the first time I can remember being IMPRESSED by fireworks. (I usually think it's just a really expensive way to annoy dogs, scare children, and create large crowds at otherwise pleasant parks.)

Coming up next... Iceland!

Paris (Part III)

And more!

Fiance's mom, sister, and sister's boyfriend went to a macaron-making class!
They were SO DELICIOUS! This one has blueberry filling.

The Medici Fountain in the Luxembourg Gardens. Do you see Clyde?

At the Montmartre Cemetery

Also at the Montmartre Cemetery (do you see Clyde?)

At the Moulin Rouge, right around the corner from our apartment

The bells of Notre Daaaaaaaaame!

At the Obelisk in the Place de la Concorde

At Pere Lachaise (huge, famous cemetery)

At the columbarium of Pere Lachaise

Pont de l'Archeveche, with love locks!

Sainte-Chappelle and its LOVELY stained glass

We ordered sushi. It was amazing.

Paris (Part II)

More photos!

On the balcony to our apartment

Looking off the balcony toward the Cafe les Deux Moulins
(the cafe from Amelie)

On the balcony, seen from the kitchen

Trying on Fiance's beret... looking snazzy, Clyde!

It took a few tries to get it right...

This doesn't seem right either...

Maybe we should try again later, Clyde.

This is the market from Amelie, where M. Collignon works.
We stumbled across it on our way back from the Bastille Day fireworks!

In the women's yard at the Conciergerie (the prison where - among many others -
Marie Antoinette was held before her beheading)

CREPES. Literally the best food in the world. We ate several. This one
happens to be miel (honey).

Eiffel Tower from Trocadero

The most... ahem... family-friendly photo I took at the
Musee de l'Erotisme. Clyde was scandalized.
(Not by the wire corset sculpture. By... the rest.)

Mmmm, strawberries, raspberries, melon. The freshest, most delicious
fruits I've ever eaten. They don't put waxes and sprays and whatnot
on their produce to make it look nice for a week. You just have to eat it
within two or three days, and you would anyway, because YUM.

Louvre!

Closeup at the Louvre

 More to come!

Paris (Part I)

I finally finished posting all of my vacation photos to my other blog (Quoi29Alex) so now I can put up Clyde's photos of the trip, too! I'm going to do several posts, to spread out the photos a little, and they're in no particular order. (Actually, that's a lie; they're alphabetical by the file names I gave them, because it's easier to make sure I don't leave any out that way.)

With Fiance at the base of the Louvre Pyramid

With me, looking at the Eiffel Tower from Trocadero Gardens (across the Seine)

Also from Trocadero

We found the Louvre!

With me at the base of the Louvre Pyramid

On one of Paris's dozens of bridges, looking at the Musee d'Orsay

With me at the Obelisk in Place de la Concorde

 More to come...

French Food

I promise to post more about France when we get home... I'm taking more photos than I'm posting, I swear! But I wanted to stop in and make a note of the food here, because that's one of the things we were most looking forward to.

We just had sushi for dinner. It was delicious. I know... not French. But delicious. It's a lot like the sushi at home, but with better produce and a different kind of tuna (so it was a color you don't want your tuna to be at home, generally).

 

 

Other people in our group (not myself) went to a class to learn how to make macarons! Lucky for us, they brought back the fruits of their labor and generously shared the deliciousness!

 

 

There are more food photos to come when I do big posts when we get home, but that's it for now!

Clyde in PARIS: Day 1

Clyde and I are in PARIS! Yes, that's right folks: PARIS. Check out the view from our balcony (you can see le Cafe des Deux Moulins, famously known as the cafe from Amelie):

We arrived at 1pm (after 12 hours of travel, with driving to DC, flying to Iceland, switching planes and flying to Paris, most of which was not conducive to sleeping, and I don't handle plane landings very well - they make me feel sick - so I didn't take any plane/airport photos, and we napped when we got here). After the nap, we wandered around Montmartre to familiarize ourselves with the area, and had a lunch pieced together from the markets on our street. Lunch included the most amazing, flavorful strawberries & raspberries we've ever eaten:

 
Also, baguettes, cheeses, and roasted chicken. Then we watched some French TV, and had a dinner similar to lunch, then wandered around some more after dark. And I ordered a crepe (with Nutella, of course) and a Coke from the guy on the corner! (I was a French major and have never been to France before... the sense of accomplishment I got from this minor task was ridiculously awesome... not to mention, the crepe was AMAZING.)

Anyway, it's already past midnight here (though I'm posting in Virginia time still, so this will show as Saturday evening) so it's Bastille Day! There are already some celebrators in the streets, and the occasional feu d'artifice (firework) and the next 24 hours promise to be CRAZY!