Beaucoup des pâtisseries….and more delicious food!

Bonjour, bonjour! Ca fait trop longtemps!

As I hope anyone reading this by now knows, I recently had the most unbelievable experiences in Paris earlier this year in May and have been attempting (and sadly failing…) to document specific experiences via this blog.  It is my first attempt and summer was a busy time, but now that I’m back in school and got a rhythm the upkeep of this beauty should become easier and more punctual. 🙂

As I hope you all also know by now, I had a list of things I wanted to do while in Paris.  Being the insane foodaholic that I am, one of them was manger beaucoup des pâtisseries! For anyone who doesn’t know what that means…it means eat lots of delicious baked goods and pastries!  My absolute weakness is always dessert or any baked good of any sort – I had many une quiche délicieuse and way, way, way too many baguettes….if that is in fact possible…I’m still trying to decide!

So allow me to (attempt to) share with your the variety of deliciousness that I experienced.  For the sake of being efficient, I will start with my “goal” photos – the pastries! – however as the post progresses you will see non-pastry related deliciousness that I felt absolutely had to be shared, regardless of its non-pâtisserie status.  Unfortunately, many of the pastry-family foods I devoured were devoured in my hotel bed late at night and I don’t consider the images of them clear enough to put up here…I will say that raspberry financiers became one of my absolute favourites and that I (surprisingly) did not like canele!

Now, feast your eyes…unfortunately not our stomachs! 😦

Visiting the Eiffel Tower

Bonjour mes amis!

That’s right – I’ve returned…again!  About time, right?!

Today, I bring to you my various adventures at, where else, the Eiffel Tower!  I was fortunate enough to visit this amazing architectural landmark twice, and one of our group visits took us over a bridge very near to the Tower with a great view of it.  On my last trip to the Tower, I was able to knock off #10 from my list of things to do in Paris – go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower!!

A shot of the Eiffel Tower as we cross the bridge over to Musee Quai Branly for one of our group visits..

Here’s another imperfect shot of yours truly, this time battling with my skirt in the wind!  It’s okay though… because it was in Paris! 🙂

The first visit I had was a really fantastic evening outing with my three main FPPCM gals.  It wasn’t a super long night, but it was really a memorable experience.  We bought a cheap bottle of champagne, left just after dark, and arrived about fifteen minutes before the Tower’s famous strobe-lights go off on the hour (which is primarily what we went to see).  It was really just a lovely, chilled evening with great company and really something to behold as we watched the lights go off.  I’m pleased to say that some of the film shots I took of this night also turned out, as I really didn’t have a lot of hope that they would given the crazy long exposure times, shaky hands, booze, and no tripod!  (Not to mention, an unfamiliar camera!)

Here are some of the shots from that night!

Food Adventures in Paris!

Why, hello there!

If you are new to my blog – welcome!  If you are returning – welcome back! 🙂

Firstly, apologies for it being so long since my last post!  For those of you who don’t know, I recently spent three amazing weeks in Paris for a school-related course and it was this trip, in fact, that prompted me to (finally!) create a blog, this very one that you are reading right now.

As a result, my first blog series was (/is!) chronicling my adventures and experiences from that trip.  Unfortunately, due to time constraints between course visits while we were there, the obligatory tourist sight-seeing, our hotel’s very sketchy internet and some technical difficulties with my image processing software, I was unable to stay on top of my Paris updates.

But fear not, I have returned! (Both to my blog and to Toronto!)   Despite being unable to actually publish my posts while I was away, I wrote drafts about each experience  on the days of the respective experiences, so the emotions were still fresh and real.  The upcoming posts that you’ll see will mostly consist of lightly edited versions of those original drafts.  Unfortunately, there will still be some delays as I’m still struggling with my imaging software…and as a photography student, I hate the thought of publishing these posts without photos – especially since I took literally thousands of photos and would like to share a few of my favourites!

Une journée à Versailles!

Killing two birds with one stone (#12 and #18 on my list of things to do in Paris), I’m writing this at the end of our picnic day at Versailles.  By the time it reaches you, the lovely reader, it will likely be a few days later as I don’t want to ruin an amazingly fantastic, unreal day with hotel internet frustrations! 🙂

Every year that this blissful trip happens, our wonderful course coordinator (the same lovely dude that arranged for us to see the opera) also tries to do a pique-nique at Versailles.  The lucky people that we are, we had our picque-nique – and our 24C weather too!!  Now, as an island girl, you can only imagine how happy I was!! Of course, everyone else wanted to sit in the shade, so we did for the picnic.  After that, it was almost three full hours in the glorious, hot sunshine pour moi!  I walked around the entire Grand Canal (the giant water cross thing) in something ridiculous like under an hour and a quarter, as we were meant to meet at 4:30 and I didn’t have a watch/device with the correct time! (Duh…)

A very varied feast including roast chicken and potatoes, strawberries, grapes, cherries, bananas, and of course beaucoup de vin, des baguettes, de fromage, des chocolats and other yummy desserts!

Notre Dame

Keeping it short and sweet!

This was meant to be included in the previous post with Champs-Elysees and L’Opera however due to technical difficulties/limitations that I’m still learning about (#NewbieBloggerProblems !!)  it’s in it’s own little post.

8. Visit Notre Dame