What a whirlwind of events! I have been taking the city of Paris by storm for the last couple days, and even though my feet hurt and I'm exhausted, I don't think I would have done things any other way.
On Friday, Trevor and I got up early to go to Versailles. I decided that I wasn't going to leave Paris without seeing Marie Antoinette's
Trianon (the "little" estate that Louis XVI gave her) and without renting a boat and rowing down the canal in the gardens. Luckily, Trevor was up for doing both, and we wound up spending the whole day there! We even stumbled upon Marie Antoinette's farm, which I didn't even know existed. We got to see (and feed!) some really cute goats, and the buildings were some of the coolest things I have ever seen.
When we (reluctantly) returned to Paris after a day of gamboling, we went out for dinner and drinks in the Latin Quarter. I decided that since Trevor is a cheese guy, we would have to get fondue at some point, so I took him to
L'Assiette aux Fromages which is where we had fondue dinner through Accent. He really liked it, and we sat right next to a poster that was all about how to create the perfect cheese plate depending on the season, which he made me translate into English for him.
Saturday morning we went up to the Porte de Clignancourt for a giant flea market. There were so many things I wanted to buy - dressers, tables, paintings, sculptures - but that I definitely could not afford to ship back to the United States. I wound up buying three sets of coasters with paintings by Toulouse Lautrec and other artists with a similar style.
We wound up eating an early dinner which we made at the apartment, and then we had to hurry to get down to the Parc des Princes for the PSG (Paris Saint Germain) vs. Lille football match! It was such an exciting game, not only because it was my first time at a soccer game besides the Milwaukee Wave, but also because the referee was making terrible calls which resulted in the PSG coach getting angry and being thrown out of the game. Trevor had a huge smile on his face the whole time, and I enjoyed being able to translate for him what the people around us were saying.
On Sunday, we brought some cheeses we had bought at a store by my house called Aux Bons Fromages to the Bois de Boulogne, where we had a picnic with some wine and smoked salmon. We camped out in the shade of a tree and had a great time eating and people watching. After a while we decided we wanted to rent bikes, and we had so much fun biking through the forest and along the little streams.
Sunday night was a sad one for me, as it was the last time that I would be eating dinner with both Jacques and Sylvie-Anne. She had won a place on the French National Hunting Team, and had to go to Spain on Monday to train. I thought it was so strange that something as small as Sunday night dinner, that had begun to feel so familiar to me, would never happen again in the same way. After dinner was over, I had a little cry, and I realized that it was the first of many little cries that would be yet to come.
Monday morning was the last time I went to my internship, and that was also fairly odd because I realized that I was probably never going to see the kids in my classes again. I didn't do very much work for the internship, largely due to lack of organization on the school's part, but Madame Beauvy wrote me a wonderful letter of recommendation and gave me a hug and a kiss before I left.
We spent the rest of the day exploring
Père Lachaise, another one of those places in Paris that I have been several times, but think that everyone should have the opportunity to see. Every time I go there I find something new to delight in and several new pictures to take.
That night, I had my last picnic with the girls by the Eiffel Tower. I can't believe how close I've become with them, and it was one of the most bittersweet moments I have ever experienced. We made sure to stay until the tower lit up so that we could get some cute pictures, and of course we had a little too much wine and wound up singing Disney songs a little too loudly. The walk home made me realize just how much I am going to miss living in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, with some of the most wonderful people I have ever met.
On Tuesday, we had a "Dinner of Decadence." After my exam in the morning, we went to the food market near Anna's apartment and explored a little. This is where the decadence began - we decided to buy a block of foie gras that we planned on eating for dinner. We then made our way to these two stores called Hediard and Fauchon by Place de la Madeleine, where Jacques told us it would be too expensive to buy anything but where it would be fun to look. Of course, we wound up buying something at not one but BOTH stores.
Inside Hediard:
Inside Fauchon:
At Hediard we bought jamon iberico, which is ham that has been cured for at least three years. The pigs come from a special region in Spain, which gives them a unique flavor. It's ridiculously expensive (283 euros a kilo!) so we only bought six little slices. At Fauchon we bought a special type of Camembert that was aged by Hervé Mons, a cheesemaker in France who specializes in aging cheese.
Our dinner of decadence would not have been complete without some wine, so we bought a Burgundy, a Riesling (a perfect pairing with foie gras), and a Sauternes. Jacques also let us use some apple chutney, which he said would taste fabulous with the foie gras on some toasted baguette. The jamon iberico was simply amazing - I can't believe that after three years of curing, it was hardly salty at all. I loved the fact that we were able to buy all the ingredients for our dinner, and that we enjoyed them so much.
I can't believe how much we've done in the week that Trevor has been here, and I think it's really special that I was able to show Trevor the Paris that I have gotten to know over the past four months
