I Spy Paris, Part 1

Well............since I fly to Italy in the morning, I should probably blog about Paris two and half weeks ago, right? Sorry!

Three weeks ago now, I was feeling restless. I was sick of just going to work and getting burned out and then spending the weekend sleeping and doing laundry. I decided that regardless of whether my roommates wanted to come, I was going to Paris.

I started planning and looking at prices for buses, planes, trains, hostels, etc. After a couple days, my roommates realized I was serious and decided that even if they didn't care about seeing Paris, they'd rather come with me. So Friday evening, we found some cheap bus tickets for early the next morning, and booked a super sketchy hotel. Elise made a game-plan of places to see, Lindsey downloaded map apps, and by 6 AM the next morning, we were on the bus that would take us to Paris.

We arrived around 11 AM, and using the maps that our super awesome bus-driver Anton gave us for free, we began our trek around the city.

If I went into detail about how it really was, this post would be way too long. Basically, there was a lot of walking, a lot of metros, a lot of getting lost, a lot of very painful feet and joints, and a lot of really incredible, amazing things. :)

Rainy morning bus ride

I spy.....Paris.

I spy...Victor Hugo's house.
We didn't want to pay the money to go inside, but it was still cool to stop by.
Another one of his houses is a block away from me here in Brussels. 

I spy....a random old manor...

...with a pretty courtyard.

I spy....the Church of St. Paul and St. Louis
This is the church that Marius and Cosette are married in in Les Miserables. :)

I spy...the flying buttresses of Notre Dame.
(The corner shop is called Esmeralda...Victor Hugo popping up yet again.)

Cathedrals are my favorite. I've really had some amazing spiritual experiences in them. Notre Dame was amazing. I was tempted to walk through the aisles singing "God Help The Outcasts." :)

For lunch, I grabbed a tomato and mozzarella panini from a street vendor.
Delicious!!!
Elise just ate the waffles and Nutella she brought in her bag...

I spy with my little eye.......
THE one and only Eiffel Tower.
WAY cooler than the Las Vegas replica.

Lindsey and I paid for tickets to go all the way to the top while Elise sat below.
The view was TOTALLY worth it.

I spy.....Napoleon's Arch of Triumph.
I sat on a bench and had a bit of a melt-down, refusing to walk any more without resting my feet.
Worn out ankles, knees, and hips don't do so well after walking miles of cobblestone.

I spy..... Moulin Rouge.
I promise we didn't go in. :) We just swung by for pictures.

I spy......the Paris Opera House.
Like the one in Phantom of the Opera.
I so wish we could have gone inside!

I spy......really tired girls.
And this is what we looked like taking the metro to our hotel.
And then we walked around lost for an hour and a half until I confiscated the map and found our creepy hotel.

We proved that it is, in fact, possible to see Paris in one day.
But I really don't recommend attempting it. ;)

Fancy Food Friday

Oh, hey look! It's actually Friday this time! Bonus point for me!

I should probably devote my posts to something other than food....like our day-trip to Brugge a couple weekends ago or how I missed the coronation of the 7th king of Belgium because of my ridiculous insomnia problems or how we've booked flights down to Venice and Rome for my last full weekend here or that we're headed to Paris in the morning....

I'll post the stories and pictures later. Promise. 

Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures from our dinner Monday night. We were invited to dine at the house of our boss's colleague Patrizia, who has been volunteering her time to help us with our project. She and her husband are from Italy and are some of the nicest and most well-educated people I've ever met. Being Italian, of course, the "small pasta dinner" they promised was not exactly small.

We started with wine glasses full of apple juice, fizzy water, and regular water (not all at once, obviously). The first course was a delicious spaghetti plate.

Next, Andrea dished each of us a scoop of cold mashed potato, tuna, and caper salad 

as well as a delicious Greek cucumber and garlic salad. 

Once we finished with that (and we were already starting to feel full...), 

they brought out the bread and ratatouille. 

Dessert consisted of a raspberry chocolate cream cheese tort (cake) and a chocolate mousse tort,

and then we finished off the evening sipping mint herbal tea and having pleasant conversation. 

Such a lovely evening with such lovely people.

Besides that amazing meal, I mostly just eat potatoes. 

Except this blasted, muggy, sticky, Europe-doesn't-believe-in-air-conditioning, energy-draining heat has led me to discover something magical. 

We've been sticking everything we possibly can into the itty-bitty 5" x 6" x 12" freezer box in the top of our tiny refrigerator. So one day, I stuck a little cup of peach yogurt in there. A couple hours later, I pulled it out and scooped it onto a warm Belgian waffle dripping with gooey apricot jam. 

YOU GUYS!!!! 

Heaven. 

Absolute perfection. 

And dare I say it, better than Nutella. 

So this is my current obsession/daily, after-work snack. 

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. :)

Fancy Food Friday

ok. So maybe it's Saturday now. But this was meant for Friday.

I've never been one of those people who sees a need to photograph everything they're eating.

But GUYS!

Food is so yummy!!!

Especially the stuff I've been making and eating lately.

I'm obsessed.

So enjoy and drool and go eat yummy food.

Authentic pomme (apple) scone, hand-made framboise (raspberry) gummies, and sugar-roasted almonds
from the medieval fair

Street waffle.....but they're just as good when you buy them from the store and stick them in the microwave

lunch one day.... toast with tomato/pesto, gouda, and oregano

melted Belgian truffles... Super cheap from the supermarket

This is called a Chocolate Bomb

It's basically a giant chocolate mousse truffle

This has been a frequent meal this week.
Tomatoes and fresh basil and fresh mozzarella
(and please notice the amazing tarts also on the table)

I don't even like tomatoes usually, but I could eat this every day.
YUM.

Gelato.
Framboise, Citron, et Melon
(raspberry, lemon, and the most delicious melon I've ever tasted)

On slow mornings, I make big breakfast.
Hashbrowns with a "yokey" egg and ketchup, toast with amazing apricot jam, and orange juice

I like making pretty food. 

and I like eating pretty food. 

Productivity, Thanks to Mr. Disney

A follow-up post of sorts, just to prove how far I've come from last week's insanity.

Yesterday was a holiday. And I decided to be productive. Not the "I'm gonna maybe think about sorting my laundry and I'm out'a milk" kind of productive. No. I decided to DO.

I woke up, pulled on one of my last clean T-shirts and a pair of jeans from the floor, and sorted the rest of my laundry. 4 piles. 4 loads. But with my stuffing skills, I managed to squeeze it down to 3. I stuck the whites in, grabbed my wallet, and headed to the Creamery. I bought the stuff I needed (milk, juice, eggs, etc.), but then the thought hit me that oh yes, we have cleaning checks on Friday. And ya know, old dry Clorox wipes only work so well for so long, so I decided to splurge and buy REAL cleaning supplies. Plus, I also had a lot of money on my card that had to get spent.........
I heroically conquered the hike back to my dorm while hefting 40 lbs of loot per arm, put away all the groceries, and made myself an actual lunch. I felt so studious reading my homework while I sat in peace, eating my delicious oven-baked French-bread veggie pizza and gulping a heavenly glass of ice-cold milk.
I transferred the loads of laundry and decided to take a break by painting my nails neon green. And then I sat and read for fun for a bit.
And then I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. Kitchen, bathroom, walls, ceilings, cup-boards, back-splashes, everything. And it smelled amazing! And I felt so cool!
As I finished in the kitchen, I decided to make my mouth-watering citrus-glazed salmon for dinner. So I did. And it really was mouth-watering. And then I ate a lot of Oreos with peanut butter and milk, just because I could. For FHE, we played Swedish Twister, Jenga, and baked a cake. Afterwards, I did not stay and talk in the lobby for hours, I went back downstairs to do some more reading and fold laundry. As I sat and waited for my last load of laundry, a friend came down, and we had a good talk. Then I got my laundry, folded it, wrote in my journal, and went to bed not too long after midnight. ACCOMPLISHMENT!

*disclaimer: I was NOT productive yesterday until I woke up at 12, having slept straight through work.........oops...........

 
Today was pretty productive as well. Worked, went to choir, did BoM homework, and had time to change my blog set-up. I was so sick of trying to edit pictures using parts of Paint, Power-Point, AND the default editor, so I even downloaded a new one, and I love it. :)

And I couldn't have done any of it (well, ok, maybe I could've but it wouldn't have been nearly as enjoyable) without the support and inspiration from the wonderful world of Disney. All of this happened over the past 2 days while listening through the 201 songs that come up when you type "disney" into Grooveshark. And most of them are actually the old, classic Disney songs! Maybe I'm just a teensy bit bitter my mom got to spend today at the Happiest Place on Earth (except for the temple...). Yeah, maybe just a teensy bit bitter.

I'm going to remember this post as I drown tomorrow, remember all the many things I've done. Because tomorrow, my friends, will be my first 12 hour day. Work at 9. Lunch break at 12. And classes from 1 til 9 PM!!!! I'M GONNA DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (...and NOT because it's so fluffy). Props to you if you get that. :)