Day Trip to Chartres

I woke up super early in time to catch the train to Chartres, France this morning with Cathie.  This was a last minute decision to go...but I wanted to get out of Paris at least once over my vacation time and this was a perfect option.  Chartres is a town of about 40,000 people and located an hour's train ride southwest of Paris.  The Chartres Cathedral is famous for its "Chartres blue" stained glass....hence where the color name was coined.  The original structure burned in 1194, but the church standing now has been there ever since.  We got off at the Gare de Chartres and immediately saw the direction we should be heading in.  The spires stood high over the town.  

Unfortunately they are doing a bit of restoration so there is a bunch of scaffolding in the front facade.  

Pictures don't do this stained glass justice...its absolutely beautiful.  

We climbed one of the spires to the top-excellent views!

View from the back.  

Musée des Beaux-Arts de Chartres

Walk along the riverside.

Cute street sign! 

It was a nice day, but fairly chilly.  The church was obviously cold, and a bit windy outside.  After we did our once over of the church, we contemplated doing the tour of the crypt but decided to wait and see if we had time later on.  We wandered around the narrow streets to try and find some lunch.  Grabbed a quick sandwich, then we continued on down the hill from the church and found a small river running through the "old town."  Discovered a couple of other old churches, bridges, and buildings that were quite interesting and beautiful!  It was a perfect walking town so that's what we accomplished!  I was impressed with the restoration of old buildings, and how the town has kept its "old charm."  It was quiet and peaceful, much unlike the streets of Paris and the people were very friendly.  

We had time to take the tour of the crypt, unfortunately, I didn't get any fabulous photos because they're taken with my Iphone.  The tour was in French, which I am slowly beginning to get use to, but of course we grabbed an English leaflet just in case.

And also in the church, this is a fragment of the sancta camisia (tunic of the Virgin Mary) that was sent as a gift from the Empress Irene of Byzantium to Charlemagne in 876.  It was then given to the church by his grand-son where it remains still today.  Although this is a rumored story and there are no absolute facts...it was examined in 1927 and experts claimed that it does date from the 1st century.   Only two relics survived the French Revolution and both are in Chartres Cathedral.  

Our train was a little delayed heading home, but still only lasted an hour...arrived in Paris around 8 this evening.  Am planning to spend the day with Gaspard tomorrow, haven't seen him in almost 3 weeks!! Franck phoned today and asked if I wanted to go to a museum or a movie with him and of course I jumped at the chance!  

Happy Valentine's Day!

Monday I went to Chloé's at 8 ready to have my last day with Marie-Césare for awhile!  I now have off most of next week too.....too bad train tickets are too expensive now for traveling!  Really wish I would have known before now.....

We spent a very American Valentine's day together.  In France, Valentine's is only celebrated between lovers...not friends and family like the US.  My mom had sent a "boites de lettres" with Disney princess Valentine's and she went crazy over it.  I don't know how many times that day she put her letters in and out of the mailbox.  

We continued on to make chocolate cupcakes.  I had a mix and mom also sent some cupcake wrappers and lots of sprinkles.  She LOVED the heart shaped sprinkles and toothpicks with hearts.  They don't have things like that here, so its always a treat when I bring fun stuff from the States!  

After dressing up in all of our princess glory, we had a "ball."  Who was attending this ball?  Cinderella, Snow White, Belle, Princess Tiana, Jasmine, and of course doudou.  We put on music, danced, had some tea, and shared Valentine's together.  All in all, it was a fabulous day!  I love princess parties and making cupcakes so it turned out to be a great time.  Padi and Didou came to pick her up around 5.  We had her suitcase packed and cupcakes waiting for them when they arrived.  We had bisous all around and bid farewell.  

Ashleigh was cooking dinner for her friends and so kindly invited me along.  Her risotto was delicious and paired with cheap French wine-excellent.  It ended up being a late night just chatting with each other.  Oh, and having Tim Tams.  A Tim Tam is an Australian cookie that Addie had brought for Ashleigh.  Of course, I just had to try one for the experience.  It's a chocolate cream filling sandwiched between two chocolate malt biscuits.  They have a variation of the Tim Tam in grocery stores in the US, but its not the original.  We bit off either end of the cookie, then sucked hot tea up through the cookie like a straw.  This sounds gross, but you can't really taste the tea and the cookie just kind of melts into a delicious choclate-y mush.  Needless to say, I had another.  

Tuesday was my big day at Le Cordon Bleu.  I was taking my first class....Perfecting the French 'Macaron'.  We were making chocolate with fleur de sel and I was excited!!!  The building is quite small and without all the students in white coats outside I probably would have walked right past it.  I was greeted with a sign in sheet, recipe folder and an apron/towel set.  Since I was early of course,  the receptionist directed me to the "winter garden" where 30 or so other students were taking a break in between classes.  I sat down at one of the tables only hoping to break into a discussion they were having.    It was easier than expected and honestly, who doesn't like to tell people about their experience at Le Cordon Bleu...the most famous culinary school in all the world... so I was all ears.  Shortly after, I was called up for the class.  I thanked them for sharing with me, donned my apron and headed up the stairs.

  

The classroom was a big granite countertop with of course everything already measured out for us, each grabbing a station.  Anything you could ever imagine that would be in a kitchen was there.  It was fascinating.  I made friends with some of the students beside me, just as the chef walked in.  He was an older man who has loads of experience and even owns a boulangerie here in Paris.  He spoke in French, and there was another student there translating the class into English.  To my surprise, I could understand 95% of what he was saying!  He demonstrated all the steps and let us in on all the secrets of macarons (which I don't think I'll share here), then we were to duplicate exactly what he had done.  It was easier than expected, although I have a feeling this was the high point of my macaron making.  

As we were "forming" our macarons, chef came by and told me I was doing an excellent job.  Since I honestly hate to bake, this came as a shock but I just said thank you, topped them off with a little fleur de sel, and took it as quite the compliment.  After popping them into the oven, we began to make the chocolate ganache filling. 

Yummy, huh?  A huge bowl of chocolate deliciousness.  

My macarons! 

As we were filling and putting the macarons together, he came by again and said I had the best macarons in the class and he loves having students like me in class.  I always love being recognized for something I am good at, and by a Master Chef at Le Cordon Bleu made it a million times better.  While we had been making our chocolate macarons, he had whipped up some purple ones with raspberry filling.  They were bizarre, but so pretty!  

After receiving our certificate of completion, we packed our macarons into a box with our aprons, towels, and recipes and were allowed to take them home.  I couldn't wait to show my friends!  I thanked chef for a wonderful class and couldn't wait to join him again.  Kerry was finishing up getting her hair cut at Galeries Lafayette, so I met Kerry and Cathie for a drink near the Opera.  They both loved my macarons!  I was guarding them like they were my child on the metro because I didn't want to mess them up before I had the chance to take a picture.  (Silly, I know.) 

I absolutely cannot wait to go back and take another class at Le Cordon Bleu.  It is by far my favorite thing I've done in Paris (it trumps the Eiffel Tower by a million) and easily one of my top favorites EVER.  Just behind Jimmy Buffett in concert.  :)  

Catching Up....

I hate being behind on blogging because I feel like my readers don't get as many details...and details make everything a bit better!  

Sunday morning I met Ashleigh for church, and afterwards met Kerry at Parc de la Villette for our afternoon showing at The Géode.  I walked up to the window and asked the guy (about our age) for two tickets to "Oceanosaures."  He just kind of laughed as we exchanged money and tickets.  I guess it is funny for two 23 year old girls to go see a show amongst 158 other children...but hey-it was on our list of things to do!! We chose Oceanosaures instead of the space show because Oceanosaures was in 3D.  We had a bit of time before the movie, so we walked around the "park" a little bit and took pictures of the Géode.  The area was dodgy and the park was a concrete park.  There were tons of families playing and enjoying their time....I can't imagine taking my kids there all the time, where's the grass people?!  

Look closely and you can see us in one of the panels! 

The Géode is the only operational building of its kind of Paris.  There is a similar building near La Défense but it closed in 2001.  Since the French queue for everything, we went inside a little early to find the line already forming.  Excited about seeing Oceanosaures with our 3D glasses we headed up as soon as our tickets were validated.  Kerry had never seen a show in 3D before, so it was quite the experience for her.  Too bad our favorite part of the movie were the advertisements at the beginning for Haribo gummies and featured flying pink marshmallows.  The movie was informative, and quite interesting, but it lacked any sort of climax which was disheartening.  

Ashleigh had to pick up a couple of friends from the airport, so we headed to her area to do a little sightseeing before bombarding in at her house to meet the friends.  Parc des Buttes Chaumont in the 19th had wonderful views of the Sacre-Coeur and was lovely on a late Sunday afternoon.  The park had lots of hills and grass...and was quite big for what you normally find in the city.  

Afterwards we found a chinese place to have some din.  We both have been craving Chinese since we didn't get any the day of the parade!  The lady didn't speak a bit of English, but with our awesome French skills we survived :)  It was GOOD.  They also have carryout so I will definitely be back there when I'm in the mood.  I had citrus chicken with rice and spring rolls.  Yum!  

Ashleigh lives just up the street so we popped over to meet her friends.  Her friend Addie is from Australia, but they met while at camp in North Carolina.  Addie's brother, Paul, is also with her....they are on break from University and have just been traveling all over Europe in the meantime.  

I'm having issues with my pictures, so until I hear from the blog pros, Kaelah and Mike, I can't load any new ones.  Is that a sign I've taken too many photos? haha.... I have some other photos from Buttes Chaumont and of course of my delish Chinese food, but will post them tomorrow.  As well as lots of photos from Valentines Day and my class at Le Cordon Bleu yesterday!  

Le Marais

Another smashing weekend!!  I've been hanging around Kerry so much I'm beginning to say things like a Brit...cracking, smashing and lovely.  Saturday we were going to explore Le Marais a little, pop in Thanksgiving, see Victor Hugo's apartment, and Musée Carnavalet.  Soo...we did just that!  

We approached Place des Vosges and knew immediately we were in the right place.  It is this lush area with a nice park and great shopping.  

Victor Hugo's bookcase...not even one copy of Les Miserables here

Comparing the photos of his actual house as to what it is now, I think they have done a good job of keeping it the same.  Just down the street was Musée Carnavalet, a museum of the history of Paris.  More importantly was the 'Voyage en Capitale, Louis Vuitton et Paris' exhibition.  We had all seen the advertisements in the metro but haven't actually put that into action so we all felt very fortunate to have just stumbled upon it!  

Of course, no pictures were allowed and they had staff watching you like hawks.  It was a wonderful exhibit through the development of Louis Vuitton.  The collection included beautiful trunks from the mid 1800's to present day.  I don't fancy Louis Vuitton bags now, mostly because there are so many knock-offs, but the trunks that were on display from the 1800's were absolutely stunning.  The old camping gear, lounge chairs, handbags, intricate trunks, picnic "baskets" if you will, and tea sets were incredible!  

As we were beginning to get a little hungry, we found the other Breakfast in American location.  I don't know why pancakes, milkshakes, and bacon seem so good to all of us at this point....but we agreed and got in the queue for a table.  Sunny Side Up Burger? Yes, please.  (times 4...one for everyone at the table!)  What isn't better with a runny egg on top?  Absolutely nothing.  (Notice that I grabbed all the dill pickles off my friends' plates...)

Too bad my stomach was yelling at me the rest of the day for eating all that fatty grease.  When you're not use to eating that all the time, its amazing how it makes you feel...blah.  

After waiting in line in the rain at The Conciergerie...

we were the last ones to enter for the day and were able to spot Marie Antoinette's cell, play in movie sets, and see some pretty cool movie posters from old French movies.  It was rather a mish-mash museum with the beginning being French films, and the end a tour of the cells, tombs, and shrines at The Conciergerie.  

The Conciergerie is a formal royal palace and prison where most people stayed before they were taken to the guillotines in the late 1700's during the French Revolution.  Most famous inhabitant here?  Probably Marie Antoinette.  Where she still resides in her cell at this very day.  HA!

Since it was the last day of the winter sales in France, it wouldn't be fair if we didn't give the stores a look...right?  It's a good thing its the end of the sales because there was absolutely nothing left.  The sale items in all of the stores were tiny racks with maybe 10 items on it.  Calling it a pretty unsuccessful shopping trip would be an understatement.  I told Chloé I would babysit Saturday night so I left the girls and headed to the 9th.  Marie-Césare and I had a great night together...she was so sweet and well-behaved!  I love it when we have days like that...I can't wait until tomorrow to hang out with her all day.  We're going to make an American treat (cinnamon rolls) and make Valentine's for her friends in the park.  

It's late and I have to be up early, so I will blog Sunday's adventures tomorrow night!  Hope you have a Happy Valentine's Day!  Love you all!!! 

Day Off?

Yesterday when Padi and Didou dropped Marie-Césare off around 5,  she was so excited to see me.  She wanted to tell me everything and show me all kinds of things that she made with Didou over the weekend.  Didou even said she asked for me Friday and Saturday night....This is a completely new concept for me so I was elated to hear it!  When Franck got home he gave me a gift that he had brought back from Morocco.  It was this beautiful pair of black beaded traditional Moroccan slippers.  I wasn't expecting anything so it was a lovely surprise.  And so sweet of them to think of me.  

School was great today!  We played a word game with the entire class and I won! What a great way to start the day.  I met Laura, Isabel, Kaitlyn, and Emily for a "picnic" lunch in the 11th.  It was kind of rainy so we had to sit under a gazebo.  After lunch we wandered around a bit and decided to go the the Musée des Arts et Métiers.  We were all expecting a hands-on, science museum experience like most museums in the States.  It was pretty much ancient scientific methods and equipment that you couldn't touch or get close to.  The first few rooms were super boring, as it didn't explain much about each piece on the small plaque just beneath the item.  As we approached the end of our journey through the museum, things got a little more interesting.  I hate to say it, but modern day science interests us more than how the lightbulb works.  The first telescope, computers, phonographs, cameras, televisions...that kind of thing is interesting.  

Arts et Métiers Metro Station

The third Statue of Liberty! I have found them all!  

Chloé had called while I was there and said I didn't need to come to work today.  Didou was spending the afternoon with her class for a school party and was just going to watch her tonight.  I don't know what is up with all this time off....I'm expecting her to ask me to work a ton in March I suppose.  After we left the museum I was in Ashleigh's neighborhood so I decided to pop over until she had to pick up her kids.  I enjoyed just hanging out...without a purpose or mission like on the weekends. ha!  

Tonight I am writing to all my lovely followers who read this crazy blog.  Just wanted to thank you for reading because it keeps me motivated to keep seeing and doing new things to share!! Toni asked a few questions so I thought I would take the time to answer them here.  

"Maggie, all of your excursions into parts of France that ordinary tourists never get to -- oh, it makes me want to return to Paris so so bad. It's an incredible city, and you are seeing so much of it, little by little. Are you totally used to hearing French all day long now? Are you thinking in French? What language do you use when you are meeting with all your multi-national friends? And, you are forgetting to put up photos of food lately!!! My eyes are hungry for more food pictures.

Where will you go next? After Paris, I mean? Has this been so wonderful that you could see yourself doing it more than this year?"

I am use to hearing French all day long now.  It is such an exciting feeling to be able to understand what people are saying.  Don't get me wrong, I don't understand everything...and sometimes I have to ask them to repeat sentences, but its a much better stance now than when I began.  American-French and Parisian-French are two very different languages and I am just now getting use to the difference.  My friends and I speak in English, just because some of us are on different levels.  We of course ask each other words and phrases if we don't know, and say little things to each other which we all start hysterically laughing at.  For example, French women always say, "bien sûr."  Which means, "of course."  (Her husband left her?  Mais, bien sûr.  She's gained weight?  Bien sûr.  You would rather have the blue than the red?  Bien, sûr....I'm shocked you don't know me better than that?!)  It's just what they say.  It's always funny when we're having a serious conversation over lunch and I bust out with a "bien sûr!"

I definitely think in French sometimes especially if I'm tired, or hungry, or when I'm with Marie-Césare I always think in French.  In fact, my English is slipping a little bit.  I never thought that could be possible, and it may sound silly, but I find myself struggling for words sometimes when I Skype with my parents or friends.  It's a good thing that I blog and speak English with my friends here to keep me on track.  

I haven't forgotten to put up food pics...promise!! When I eat something good I always try and take a picture of it.  My budget doesn't allow me to eat fancy French food all the time (much less eat out at a restaurant), and there's only so many times you want to see me eating a crêpe or a croissant.  I will try my best to eat new things and keep you updated.  I do enjoy blogging about food and one of my favorite posts was writing about the falafel in Le Marais!  

I get asked if I will stay in Paris another year or not.....daily.  Therefore, I think about it.....daily.  It is a hugeeee decision that I have to make, but luckily I don't have to decide until May or June.  It will probably take me that long to figure things out.  I do have the option to renew my visa, and as of now I can stay at the Lachaize's if I'd like.  I have thought about going to different country for another year, but I am enjoying learning French so much!  If I could stay another year, take classes, and become fluent in the French language...that would be amazing.  I feel like that would help in my career path as well.  Not that I want to live in France forever, but a bilingual hospitality management grad could be used in loads of positions.  I love my family here, they have been wonderful so far...and that has a lot to do with my decision.  If they suddenly do a 180, then yes my probability in coming home or going somewhere else is a lot greater!  I also miss my family and friends back home so much, and not a day goes by that I don't think about everyone!  

J'ai beaucoup de réfléchir!!!