I had another small housewarming party for my Belgian friends and Denise this past Tuesday. We all brought food to make and we cooked it in my hobbit kitchen (I've decided that that's the best analogy for it). The menu: chicken cooked with tomatoes, green beans, browned potatoes, and a chocolate banana thing for dessert, which I made using a recipe from my mom from when she makes it on the campfire (of course, I adjusted it to work with a hobbit kitchen). Denise made everything else and it was DELICIOUS!!!
On Saturday, I met up with my French friend, Clément, and some of his other friends from the US, and he took us all to this really pretty quarter in Paris called La Madeleine. We went to this place that's kind of like a tea room- there were pastries and coffees and teas...it was so cute! It's called Ladurée, and Clément said there's another one by Sciences-Po, which is decorated in an Oriental style (the one in La Madeleine might be decorated in the Versailles style, but Clément says absolutely not, so all we know is that the one in La Madeleine is just French in general...ha ha).
Here are pictures of outside Ladurée and inside where the boutique is.
Anyway, Ladurée is very French because they have these little cookie things called macarons, which are a French specialty. When we went, I ordered 4 macarons to try: chocolate, mango jasmine, rose petal, and violet cassis...so yummy!! I also tried a vanilla tea which was also amazing (by the way, you can see what I ordered in the picture). I felt like Marie-Antoinette sitting there, eating my macarons! I might have to go back sometime and get some macarons to go...Here is a picture of the Église de la Madeleine, which is a huge church in the middle of the square. I didn't go inside, but the outside is amazing itself!
Around the square, there are several little shops where they sell clothes and food; most are specialty shops (I found one that only sells condiments), and they're all very high quality and expensive. We found one place called Fauchon which has almost every food item you need. 
There were all sorts of meats for sale... 
....and fish. Here are some salmon filets I found, and the one in the middle with all the blue stuff on it?... those are actually bluebell flowers added for flavor. They did that with the rice too- they had little containers with dry rice in them so you can scoop out however much you want, and most of the rice had little dried flower petals or some other seasoning mixed in. I found one that had lavender in it and it smelled delicious.
These little cup things are called verrines, and they're kind of like little things of layered yogurt, except it's savory. Apparently, this is also very French... ;)
Here are some fancy cakes on display in the windows. It took all my willpower to prevent myself from sticking a finger in the chocolate one with the polka dots, but it wasn't so hard considering the fact that each cake was a tiny work of art, and I just can't bring myself to destroy art like that!
This chocolate cake looked amazingly delectable, and Clément said he had this for his last birthday.
Just a testament to how chic and cher this area is: here's a picture from another shop that had truffles!! Not even kidding, they were whole! The white ones were obviously more expensive than the black truffles- if you look closely, the sign for the black truffles reads 760 euros, and the white truffle sign says 9900 euros!
I really liked this area because it seems so romantic, and I think this will be one of my favorite places here. I almost felt like I could hear Edith Piaf singing in the streets. I'm definitely going back!!! :)
After we left La Madeleine, we walked around the Place de la Concorde, which is close to the Champs Élysées and some government buildings. If you look closely, you can see the Egyptian obelisk that's erected in the middle of the square.We didn't spend too much time there because we made our way down into the Jardin des Tuileries, and then towards the Louvre. Actually, all these places are located in a straight line through Paris, so if you stand at the Louvre facing the Place de la Concorde, you can see through the Carrousel du Louvre, the Jardin des Tuileries, the obelisk, and through the Arc de Triomphe on the other side!
We found this weird metal construction in the Jardin des Tuileries that looked like a long, curved copper wall, and Clément told us that you can have one person stand at one end and have another person at the other end and be able to talk at a normal volume and still be able to hear each other! Here's a video of us trying it (the guy standing next to me is Clément):
Here's a video from when we were walking around outside the Louvre. We were walking through this little tunnel and there was a mini-classical concert going on! It sounded beautiful, especially with the acoustics. I love that you can find random things like this happening in Paris...
Later that night, I had a date with my friend, Monica. We both share a love for Latin music and culture, so that night we had dinner at this cute little restaurant close by Notre Dame which served Spanish and Latin American food. We had sangria on the house and I ordered the paella. Monica speaks Spanish, and she's also from Colombia, so I think that might be a reason for us getting special treatment at places like this...ha ha!!After that fantastic dinner we went into the Latin Quarter to get some gelato and just walk around. There were all these tiny little side streets with a ton of bars and restaurants and clubs, and a lot of them were either Spanish or Italian- it was like having a Little Mexico or a Little Italy in Paris! We found the gelato shop in the Italian part and walked over towards Notre Dame to relax and enjoy our gelatos by the river. We also found a good street performer on the side of the river, and all these other people were sitting around, enjoying the music like we were. There was also a juggler doing his act by the guy singing, but I think he was freeloading off the attention.... :)
Anyway, here's the video:
On Sunday, Monica and I decided to take a day trip to go see the Château de Fontainebleau! We found out that our metro passes allow access to the suburbs on the RER trains on Sundays, so we basically traveled for free! Fontainebleau is such a nice town! When we got to the train station, we decided to walk the 3 km to the château instead of taking the bus, and on the way we saw some sort of a festival going on- they had a carousel, cotton candy, balloons- and they also had what looked like a community yard sale. It seemed like everyone from Fontainebleau decided to spend the day outside!
This is a video of the 'Fontainebleau yard sale'. It's kind of like an impromptu flea market, so i guess it's another part of my Aunt Lou's request fulfilled (by the way, I heard there's a market close to where I live that opens Saturday mornings, so I'll look into that too). :)And here is the Château de Fontainebleau!!
Here I am on the big staircase in the front!
There is a ton of land around the château- there's a massive garden that has a similar layout to Versailles, a small lake, and some wooded areas too. The best thing about it all was the smell. Everywhere smells like flowers and cinnamon (not even kidding) and you can take in a deep breath and feel completely relaxed. And tired too. I almost passed out on the grass. :)
How's this for a backyard? Ah, to be French royalty...
I guess the clear Fontainebleau air affected Monica and I with a little creativity, because we decided to change the settings on the camera. Here are some pictures of me... I really like how they turned out!
It was definitely nice to get away from Paris for a day to relax, but I'm back now and I feel refreshed and I'm already planning my next outing!! :)
P.S. I'm still working on fulfilling some recent requests, so if you asked to see something and you haven't seen it yet, it's because I either haven't found it yet or I'm working on getting you a better picture than what I have now. So I didn't forget! :)
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