Paris!

Spring Break this year was amazing.  Bella and I spent it in Paris.  We've been planning to do this for years and it was so fun to finally make it happen.  We stayed in a cute studio apartment in the 9th arrondissement, walking distance from Mont Marte.  It was the perfect place to be equally close to nearly everything.  The trip was a fun mix of things Bella likes (shopping, eating) and things I like (history, culture).  We saw all the usual bucket-list places.

The Louvre (and the Mona Lisa):

The Versailles castle and it's surroundings (gardens, Grand Trianon, Petite Trianon, and Queen's hamlet):

The Eiffel Tower:

Notre Dame Cathedral:

Arc de Triomphe:

Place de La Concorde where the Guillotine once stood (with the Egyptian Obelisk, Jardin des Tuileries, and the Champs Elysees, not all pictured - even in France, I often am too in the moment to think of taking pictures):

We also visited the Pantheon (where many notables are buried, such as Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, and Marie Curie), the Hotel des Invalides (where Napoleon is buried), the Gallerie Lafayette (the most famous and fancy store in Paris), the Sacre-Coeur Basilica, the Luxembourg Gardens (gorgeous place to hang out and location of the French Senate), the Saint-Sulpice Cathedral (2nd largest church in Paris after Notre Dame), the Place de Sorbonne (the famous university square where many political uprisings have begun, and the Jardin des Plants (giant conservatory and zoo) :

In addition to all the great sights, we had a ton of fun doing other little side quests every day.  We took a boat ride on the Seine.

We visited adorable little shops and ate our weight in gelato, croissants, baguettes, and pain au chocolat.

This one is called Fruitini.  The owner freezes fruit, scoops out the pulp, makes gelato out of it and puts it back into the fruit shell.  So she just has a bunch of fruits on display to buy but when you open it up, it's gelato inside, not fruit.  All natural, no sugar, and absolutely delicious.  We had mango, kiwi, and pineapple.

This little crepe shop was NEXT DOOR to our place.  The temptation, I tell you.  It smelled amazing all the time.  

We also had to stop at the Jelly Cat Cafe for Bella.  She was dying to experience what she'd seen on instagram and participate in the pretend making of a Jelly Cat stuffed item.  If you haven't seen this, look it up, but basically you stand in front of this French chef who hands you fake frosting bags, whisks, etc. and the two of you pretend to be french bakers making a french pastry of your choice.  He makes it really fun and dramatic, and in the end you get your little stuffed macaron or stuffed lemon tart, or whatever you chose to buy.  He wraps it up all fancy and pretends it's actual food.  It's a fun time.  Definitely had to try it once.  Bella and I got matching tarts - she got strawberry and I got lemon.  They are adorable.

Keeping with our tradition of finding sushi every where we go, we also found a delicious sushi place, Sushi House, right on the same street as our place.  One night we got take-out and ate it at the base of the Eiffel tower (Bella's idea).  It was magical.

We also took a croissant and pain au chocolat baking class.  It was so fun learning a new skill from a native Parisian along side people from London, Los Angeles, and Alabama. Bella was the star of the class.  Everyone else needed a lot of correction and help but Bella seemed to have done it all before.  The teacher just kept complimenting her and moving on to others.  Eating croissants fresh from the oven was amazing.  Those were the best ones we ate the whole trip.  How cool is it that we made them?!

We also did a food tour with a bunch of others around the area of le Marais in the 3rd and 4th arrondissements.  Our tour guide, Lucilla, walked us all around town for 4 hours, stopping in various cheese shops, bakeries, restaurants, etc. and buying various items for us to try.  She would describe the history of the item, how it was made, why this place makes it well/different than other places, etc.  It was a lot of fun.  I tried things I would never have thought to try on my own.  One place we went in and sat for a while, others we ate as we walked.  We ended in a cheese and wine place whose dining area was in the cellar.  That was very unique.  She got grape juice for me and Bella and we enjoyed some of the best cheese ever while talking to our newly-made friends from Norway, Sweden, and New York.  It was fantastic.  

The trip was amazing and I'm so glad we went.  It was easy to get around and everyone we met was friendly and helpful.  Bella also found some cute clothes and a pair of shoes for graduation.  I'm so glad we went. 

The only downside the bureaucracy of France.  I wasn't going to write anything negative, but just briefly, I want to make note because it was something that really hit me while we were there. I love so much about Europe and I see lots of failings in America, but in America the customer is always right.  If a rule is inconvenient, you can almost always get management to bend it to keep a customer happy.  It's where the whole Karen phenomenon started - because it works.  In France, and to some extent in Europe in general, a rule is law and no amount of logic or common sense will change it.  That frustrated me several times.

For example, the longest non-resident metro card you can purchase is a 5 day pass.  However, we were there for 8 days.  So when I bought the 5 day pass, I asked to also buy a 3 day one to use after the first expired.  No, can't do that.  Have to buy it on the morning of the 6th day because they are time stamped at purchase and if you buy them together the dates won't work.  Already a dumb idea, but ok, fine, we have to find a way to buy another card on day 6.  Day 6 was the Eiffel Tower, so before we can go there, we have to buy a card.  The man in the booth tells me he can't take cash, I have to use the machine to buy it, but the machine is malfunctioning and issues me faulty cards.  So I'm out 120 Euros.  I go back to him and explain that the machine messed up, hand him my two non-functioning cards and the receipt to show I paid.  He remembers me from moments earlier when I tried to buy from him, so he knows I'm telling the truth and he goes and checks the machine and discovers the problem.  He and I both agree that the simple solution to this is to issue me two new functioning cards and we both be on our way.  But that's not possible because his rule is that I have to pay for every card I get and if he were to give me two new cards, it would look like he just gave them away for free and he'd be liable.  He insists I pay another 120 euros.  I politely ask hm to call his manager and see what he says.  He was super sweet about it, understood my plight and plead my case to his manager for 20 minutes with no success.  The only option was to pay twice and then petition the metro online for a refund of the original 120 euros.  Absolute insanity.  He had a stack of cards right there at his desk.  He had receipts and proof I'd paid.  How much easier would it have been to issue two new cards than to now go through the whole process of refunding internationally??!?!  That kind of lunacy would never have happened here.  The guy would have taken two seconds to see the situation and he would have handed over two new cards and we could have been on our way.  Instead we were an hour late at the Eiffel tower and out 240 euros for metro cards.

This kind of silly, stupidity happened more than once during the week and I really started to get why the founding fathers dumped the tea and revolted.  I wanted to do the same.  Americans are rebels against stupid government systems and although I consider myself very German, my American came out strong at times on this trip.  I would like to go on the record, however, and say that I was never a rude Karen.  I was always kind and polite and represented my country well.  And if nothing else, these frustrating situations were good chances to practice my French.