Paris ::: day 3

Our third day in Paris, was a Sunday, a day where most of Paris closes down.

Sunday was a beautiful morning - so we decided to soak it up for a long breakfast in St. Germain. There was a great little cafe, just off of the main streets called Le Hibou that served a great breakfast. 

We split the fluffiest of all omelets, and Joel tried their cafe au chocolat - which, is literally one of the best things that I've ever tasted. Straight up warm, melted chocolate goodness.

We decided to walk to Le Marais from St. Germain, which was just under 2 miles - and was the perfect way to start the day. We spent our days eating and drinking, but because we were walking 10-15 miles a day, we did so without guilt. 

When we got to Le Marias, the Catholic church in town was starting service, so we made the split second decision to just sneak in and watch them begin service.

It was a really cool experience, and to see all of the nuns in their habits and deacons in their robes, you instantly felt like you were in a church from hundreds of years ago. 

From there we made our way to Place de Vosges, the main square in Le Marais. Laura put it the best and said, the square is just perfectly Paris - and it really was. 

We walked the square, and creeped hard on the cute Parisian kids in their darling little jackets and ballet flats, and just watched the morning start from the best seat in town. And - in all honestly, I probably could have watched the cute French kids play for like two hours. 

You can't read about Le Marais without hearing some mention of the amazing fallafel shop that is L'as Du Fallafel. 

We were told to expect a long, long line but we're assured that it would be well worth it. However, we got there early - around 12:30pm, and there were maybe 5 or 6 people ahead of us. We laughed at the clear over exaggeration of the blog reviews before us, ordered the standard fallafel and basically had our minds blown. 

You guys. 

This fallafel was not only the best I've ever tasted in my entire life - and probably ever will - and it was one of the best things we had our entire time in Paris. It is SO freaking outstanding. 

You eat it like street food, and it's pretty messy, so try to remember to grab extra napkins. It also fills you up like a brick, so go early enough so you have enough time to walk it off.

We had decided the day before to snag tickets to the French Open for Sunday. It was not in our original plan - because all of the opening day tickets were sold out when we had tried months earlier - but the tournament opens grounds passes for $15 euro the day before, and so with the weather not looking good for our original tickets (Monday), we decided to go for it. 

We took the metro from Le Marais to Roland Garros - and Joel was just about as giddy as a kid on Christmas.

Also side note- on our walk to the metro (about 2:30), the line for L'as Du Fallafel. was easily 3 city blocks long. The blogs were right - so our take away - go early, or expect a really, really long line...but like they said, it will still be worth it. 

When we arrived at Roland Garros, the afternoon games hadn't started up yet. We watched a few practice matches and decided to grab a beer in Roland Garros' one and only beer tent. 

The grounds passes that we bought did allow access to the the top 3 courts, but it didn't matter because the one guy we really wanted to see - Sam Quarry, our favorite California player, was played on a court we had access to.

It was so much fun to root for Sam as Americans - and some of the only few Americans that were there - and we like to think that we helped him pull in a victory - even though Joel kept telling me I was getting in his head. 

This American can't contain my inner Texas football coach at sporting events. 

Sam was our only full match, and we left Roland Garros around 7pm to head to our last activity of the day - happy hour at the Eiffel Tower.

Joel and I have been to two Grand Slams now (US and French) and we're really hoping to get a few more on our list, with Wimbledon being our next plan of attack next summer. 

We took the metro to the Eiffel Tower - and as soon as the tower was in my full view - it just took my breath away. 

I couldn't keep my eyes off of it, and just wanted to capture every angle I could. It really is such a beautiful monument, and after dreaming of Paris for so long, to have it in the background was just mind blowing.

We picked up a mini-bottle of champagne and some plastic glasses, found a piece of grass in the park in front of the Eiffel Tower, and jsut fell over in its beauty. 

  

I had wanted to see the tower light up - but since we were there in summer, it wasn't getting dark until 9:30/10ish, and by that point we were starving.

On Sunday, after are seriously full day, we decided to indulge in Paris pizza - to the recommendation of the Oyster shop owner from Saturday - and we were not disappointed.

Anytime our restaurant was full of Parisians - we took it as a good sign. By day 3, we didn't want to go to places were tourists had taken over, and this pizza spot in St. Germain hit the mark. 

By some stroke of bliss and adrenaline, we just didn't want the day to end. It was one of those days that I wish I could repeat every single week. Everything worked, Joel and I felt thankful and humble and just excited to be alive, and I think Sunday was the day we both truly fell in love with Paris.

To cap off our perfect day - we stumbled into a cafe that served creme brulee - we ordered a bottle of wine, played more cards, and then after 1am - closed down the cafe and slept like freaking babies.

Just another really, really amazing day in Paris.

What a week!

The week didn't turn out to be the relaxing, detoxing week I had planned for - and instead included an impromptu business trip to New York City. 

I haven't had to travel for work before, but I've always wanted to, so even though this wasn't the most - or even remotely close to the most - ideal week for me, I tried really hard to enjoy the fun parts.

When I got into the city, I was able to sneak in like a 45 minute walk before the weather turned. 

 I slipped into The Westin's hotel bar for a hummus plate and glass of white wine, and then made it back to my hotel by 7:30pm.

I was pretty wiped by this point, so I spent the rest of the night reading The One and Only,  watching HGTV, and indulging in a few peanut butter m&m's. All of the things that I thought made it an official grown up business trip.

After a full morning of meetings on Wednesday, my work was done at 2pm, and the rest of my team flew back to their respective homes. I couldn't a flight out on Wednesday night, so I was able to sneak in a really fun afternoon date with Joel's Aunt Annie. We had such a nice time having lunch, walking central park and catching up - and I was so thankful she was available and able to visit with me.

My some stroke of luck, my longtime blog friend Mallory happened to be free Wednesday night and was down for dinner and drinks. We met at The Smith at 6:30, and after a large carafe of wine, and almost 5 hours later, we finally decided that we should get ourselves home.

We had such an instant connection - such a fantastic night - and I just love her. Like love!

I woke up at 4:30 the next morning to catch an early flight back to LA. Six hours later, I'm finally back home with boys. 

My internal clock is officially very screwed up, but I'm so happy to back home. We're not doing anything tonight, just making chili and picking up those cards again - and then tomorrow we are going to see James Taylor (my absolute #1 favorite person in the world) at the Hollywood Bowl. Beyond that excitement, it's time to get back into the groove of things and reestablishing some sort of routine round these parts!

NYC ::: Paris Trip part 2

My first day back at work yesterday, and at noon I found out I had to board a 7am flight for two days in NYC. I'm still quite jet lagged from Paris - but I'm on the plane now, and just trying to make it the most fun I can. The good news was that I got to fly Virgin, so Kathy and Hoda are entertaining me at the moment.

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Day 2 - Saturday

Saturday morning we work up to really cold and wet weather. Joel went out for a run in the morning, which meant that I got to sleep in, open the french windows and just enjoy waking up in Paris. 

Our apartment was only 10 minutes from the Luxembourg Gardens, so we grabbed some croissants from Eric Kayser (Ina Garten's favorite) and took our breakfast to enjoy.

So, when Joel told me he was going to bring jogging shoes, I laughed and told him he was going to get laughed off the streets. When I was in Italy, people would literally stare and take pictures when I went out for a jog. Well, that's not the case in France. Seriously everyone and their brother was running in the gardens and the fact that I was not dressed in workout clothes made me look like the odd man out. 

This first full day in Paris we clocked in almost 30,000 steps (11 miles) and pretty much walked everywhere. After the gardens, we went for a look-see at the Louvre. 

Joel and I aren't museum people, but I did want to at least see the beautiful building, check out the glass pyramid and walk the gardens. 

It's a beautiful property but it's crowded and there are a lot of vendors trying to push crap on you, which sort of keeps you on edge.  But - it was my first view of the beautiful Eiffel tower, so it was well worth our little jaunt over to visit. 

From the Lourve, we took the Metro - which was VERY easy to understand, buy tickets, and navigate up to Rue de Martyrs. 

Rue de Maryrs is a less visited area and basically consists of one long old market street. The street is bustling, and full of little fromageries (cheese shops) , boulangeries (bakeries) , and boucheries (butchers). We both agreed that this was one of our most favorite little adventures of Paris.

By the time we were hungry, tired, and it started to rain - so we acted fast and popped into a little wine store that served cheese and charcuterie plates.The restaurant was open, so as we listened to the rain, snacked on yummy goodies, we played cards and ended up sitting in that restaurant for almost 3 hours.

 

It was Parisian perfection....and the first of many times we asked ourselves why we aren't living like this at home?

We took the Metro back to St Germain - about a 15 minute ride, to freshen up and get ready for our night.

Since we had been all around during the day, we decided to stay close to home for our dinner. There was the cutest little oyster shop that was basically just an oyster stand with a few seats, oysters, and champagne. 

We ended up having a dozen oysters, a few glasses of champagne and sancerre white wine, and fell in love with the owner Pasquale. 

 

After the oysters and all of the bread and cheese we had at our late lunch, we weren't hungry for much of a dinner.  We took our cards (seriously, best thing we ever brought on the trip!), stopped at an outside cafe, had a few beers, some french onion soup, and some escargot, and just tried to linger.

 

Linger was my phrase of the trip. I never wanted to rush home, or move on to the next activity, I just wanted us to linger. To go slow. To soak it all in, and to linger. 

 

Our trip to Paris ::: Part 1

It's so bittersweet to be writing this recap for our trip, because it means that it really is over. Thankfully the memories we made will last - and hopefully I'll be able to relive our amazing trip through these recaps whenever I start to feel heartache for my new favorite city in all of the land; Paris. 

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We left on a Thursday afternoon for an overnight flight to Paris. I wanted to be very strategic about my plane outfit for multiple reasons. First of all, we were going to be on a flight for 10+ hours, so I wanted it to be comfortable. Second of all, we were going to Paris - the capitol for fashion, and I refused to look the part of an American tourist. Also - considering the fact that I brought a carry-on for our ten day trip, all of my pieces had to have the ability to be worn multiple times.

Once we got on the plane, I added my scarf and the outfit was perfect. We got to the airport with just enough time to grab a beer and some chips and guac - our last bite of American food!

We flew coach on AirFrance, and they did a really nice job of making it as comfortable as possible (read=unlimited, free booze).

I watched a few movies and was able to catch about 5 hours of sleep on the ride over. Besides the plane being uncomfortably hot - the ride was smooth and we landed right on time at Charles de Gaulle.

We took a cab from the airport to our apartment in St. Germain - about a 45 minute (50 Euro) drive. We stayed for 4 nights at an AirBnB rental, and couldn't have been more impressed. The apartment was literally on one of the best streets in St. Germain (Rue du Four) and was spotless, beautiful, and comfortable. I honestly could not recommend using AirBnB more.

The white building was our "home"

Once we unpacked and freshened up - I learned that even with an outlet converter, you can't use American hair straighteners. Which meant we were on to our first adventure.

After a very necessary stop for an espresso - we found a cheap, and actually awesome straightener at a Dartry for 10 Euro - and we were on our way for a day of exploring. 

It was probably about 2 or 3pm by this time in Paris, but neither one of us were feeling the sting of jet lag, which was awesome. 

Thanks to our tour guide and Parisian expert Laura, she put together a nearly flawless itinerary for us. We actually would have been completely loss without her guidance, so I pretty much owe her my firstborn. 

Our tour guide had advised to hit the road right away - and she was spot on. Our first stop on the trip was Notre Dame which was a fifteen minute walk from our place. 

The church - and all of Paris - is spectacular and perfect. Paris was really easy for us to navigate, because the river splits the entire city in two banks. Even on our first walk, I felt like it was a very do-able city. 

We spent about an hour at Notre Dame. There was an initial line to get in, but it was free to walk around the church and tour the property. There were a lot of tourists - but if you can look beyond them, the church is just majestic. Everything is so intricate and beautiful, and the church manages to feel serene despite all of the chaos. 

After our visit, we walked to Ile Saint Louis - a tiny island right off of Notre Dame. We stopped in at Paris' famous ice cream shop Berthillion, and took the advice of Aspiring Kennedy for a dark chocolate & coconut combo. The dark chocolate was mind blowing.



Another must-do item for me was a trip to the scarf shop Bayman. I had read about MaryJane's - from Skinny Vanilla - experience here and Laura confirmed it - so we found the little shop and got me a shiny new scarf.



The madam of the store helped me pick out the right colors for my tones - and you'll see the scarf pop up a lot over my trip.

After our stop on Ile Saint Louis, we wanted to check out the Pont de l'Archevêché - the famous bridge where lovers throw the key away of their lock into the Sein.

It's pretty funny, because the lock bridge has gotten so over-crowded that their happen to be lock bridges all over the dang city.

The weather started to turn fast - so we popped into a cafe with a large awning and tried to study the map with a little more knowledge under our belt.







The weather for us in France - for the most part - was cold, gray, and rainy. It was unseasonable for the time we were there, but I wish I would have packed a few more "outerwear" options - but, we survived.

The downpour only lasted for twenty minutes, so we were able to walk to Chez Fernand, our dinner location, to make sure they could fit us in for dinner later that night at 8pm.



We did not make any reservations for places in advance. I didn't want to the pressure of having to race to meals if we were running late, and I didn't really know what we were going to be in the mood for. What we did do, was in the morning, we planned out the day and tried to sneak into the restaurant early to hold our place. Every restaurant - even on Friday and Saturday night - had room for us and was able to accommodate.

Our first meal at Chez Fernand turned out to be my favorite of the entire trip. The restaurant was tiny and perfect - and just so Parisian. I loved every little thing about it, and would highly recommend visiting it if you ever find yourself in Paris.

The couple next to us recommended that we start with their house wine which was spot on. House wine in the States, if it's even offered, would concern me, but in Europe it's a no-brainer. 

We started with an avocado and shrimp tartare which was phenomenal and for dinner Joel had duck confit and I had the best pasta I've ever had. It was a mushroom gnocchi/ravioli sort of thing that was literally perfection.

Our first day in Paris was absolutely perfect.