Yeah, I've only been home for 10 days or so. What's the hold up? Laziness. Flat out laziness. Ideally, I would have liked to have taken my laptop with me and tried to blog daily about the trip. But then I remembered that I tried that in Japan and I think I was able to do a day or 2 before I stopped. And that was when I wasn't a first trimester preggo! Yep...I'm pulling the pregnancy card too! :) Ok anyway enough of that. Fair warning now, very lengthy post. I don't do these that often so you'll be fine. But to take pity on you, I'll break these posts up over the next few days. One post for each place we visited.
The first part of our trip, the plane ride and the first day in Paris was awful. I think it was a combination of a nasty cold I caught from Willie and morning sickness. But the poor girl that had the aisle seat next to me on the plane. I tried so hard not to make her get up often but it was just such an uncomfortable ride! I truly hate flying. Not because of any fear, it's just so darn uncomfortable! I can't imagine how horrible it must be for Willie, being as tall as he is.
So after that most awful plane ride, we then had to make it from the gate, through customs and to our baggage. That took forever. Me having to walk slow and constant stops at the bathroom again. Luckily once we got out of the airport, I pretty much crashed on the hour long train ride to the hotel. We arrived in Paris early in the morning and I spent the entire day in our horribly floral hotel room. People, when I say the wallpaper was loud and busy, that's an understatement. The horribly busy floral wallpaper covered EVERYTHING! Not only did it cover the walls, it covered the door to the room and the closet door AND the bathroom door! AND the curtains were the exact same print. Yeah...I'm SO not exaggerating! We got a video of it, but no pics. Sorry.
I was so afraid I would be sick for the rest of the trip but luckily as the days went by, the nausea lessened. I was able to leave the room that first night for dinner, but immediately had to come back.
We were in Paris for 4 nights and once I started feeling better, it was so nice! Especially because it wasn't as hectic as our first trip to Paris. Our first time we really tried to fit way too much into it. This time was much more laid back. We also lucked out with having a couple of friends who were in Paris with family at the same time. So we were able to hang out with them for a couple of days as well.
One of those times, we had probably my favorite meal of the trip. Or at least one of my favorite meals at a little restaurant down some tiny quiet little street. The restaurant was called Le Petit Prince. One of the fun things with eating in Paris, is half the time the description or title of the menu item, is nothing like what you actually get. Which always makes dinner an adventure! This particular meal, I chose a poached egg with spinach cream and goat cheese with paprika. What I got was this:
A spinach cream soup with a poached egg in it, and the most delicious cubes of goat cheese coated in paprika. I'm on a mission now to try to find some sort of recipe to replicate that. Minus the poached egg. I could've done without that. The spinach cream soup really was so tasty and creamy! And those little bites of goat cheese added a slight punch of flavor to each bite that was absolute heaven. Because of my pickiness over what I felt like eating, I wound up only eating appetizers. Which was totally awesome. After the soup, I got a three pepper goat cheese appetizer. Again, not what I expected:
This was good, but definitely something you would want to share with people. It's kind of rich and a bit much. But still yummy! And I adore the presentation! I wanted to keep the jar!
We then had an apple tart that was oh so yummy. All in all, a very satisfying meal. And we had perfect timing too! We JUST missed the rush! As we sat there, more and more people started showing up and by the time we left, quite a crowd was waiting to be seated. Lucky us!
We spent the rest of the trip visiting a couple of museums we missed the last time. One was the Pompidou. That place is freaking awesome. Just the way it looks from the outside is enough! Everything is ON the outside! The pipes and ductwork and even the escalators!
Visiting Saint Chapelle again because words would never be able to justify how beautiful this church is. The stained glass is stunning...amazing...jaw dropping...oh just trust me...if you visit Paris...this is a MUST SEE.
We were also keeping an eye out for any cute french baby clothes (nada on that end) and just munching on loads of croissants and baguettes. Willie had me spoiled. Every morning he went out and got me a croissant and orange juice so I wouldn't have to leave the bed on an empty stomach.
And macarons! Oh the macarons! Our goal was to visit the two most famous places we had read about for macarons. Laduree was the first one we hit. Unfortunately, I didn't make a note of the flavors, just know they were so yummy!
Aren't they beautiful? They were very very tasty.
Then our last day in Paris, we hit Pierre Herme. That was without a doubt my fave. I think what won me over with them was the flavors. A bit more inventive. The macarons themselves, were only slightly above Laduree. Again, lovely, no? My favorite flavor was the chocolate passion fruit.
We also hit an amazing falafel place. We actually waited half an hour in line for this. Now, I'm not a falafel fan folks. But this....oh wow. The layers of flavor in this little pocket were delicious! Totally worth the wait.
Of course there was nowhere to sit to eat, so we just parked it on the sidewalk to enjoy the falafels.
Out of everything, my favorite thing we did was going to the Eiffel Tower at night, sitting in the grass at the bottom and having a dinner of baguettes, cheese and fruit. It was so sweet and relaxing. We timed it so we would be there for the sparkling lights on the tower. And only in Paris....there were guys walking around trying to sell you bottles of wine. How funny!
We were also there for Nuit Blanche. I really didn't get to see any of that though. That was the night of Le Petit Prince, and after dinner I went back to the hotel room and Willie and friend went exploring and discovered all that fun stuff.
Paris is an amazing city and the food is wonderful. One drawback for me, and this is just Europe in general....the smoking. They unfortunately are still allowed to smoke in restaurants although I think only in the outside seating. Which can be quite a damper when your both eating and pregnant. But it didn't happen too too often so, teensy tiny drawback. :)
Stay tuned for the next post...Nice. More food, french....and yachts....lots of yachts.
Labels: Europe 09, Paris
