My fun began last Thursday when one of my closest friends, Jackie, arrived for the weekend. I think I have gotten quite good at showing people around the city--hopefully Jackie feels the same :) I also got to see some new things including the cafe and movie theatre featured in my favorite French film Amelie. Picture is of Jackie and I outside the cinema...
I also of course made her eat too may pastries (and ate some myself). I haven't posted pastries in a while because I eat them so often, but this one was just too good!
A pistachio round...will have to get that again before I leave :) We also went to La Durée for their famous Macarons. Wayyy too expensive to go more then once (1.65 and tiny), but I must admit they were rather delicious.
What was most fun was cooking together. Saturday night, after two consecutive days of picnics of wine, bread, and cheese, we decided to make a more proper meal. We stopped by a frommagerie, market, and Nicolas (for wine), and made a delicious pasta dinner. I think it was the first time I had cooked asparagus since leaving home..so good! The culinary-ness continued the next morning with some delicious pain perdu (French toast). Pain perdu means lost bread; basically you use old baguette (even rock hard haha) to make your French toast--it really soaks up the egg and softens when you cook. Quite delicious! I was sad to say goodbye to Jackie, but I am looking forward to spending 10 days with her in the Netherlands in just a few weeks!
Now, the title of this blog post refers to the craziness which ensued on Monday. One of my friends came up with a challenge: Visit all 20 arrondissements (neighborhoods) of Paris in one day. Now, this may not sound like a big deal, but when you think about it, it's quite ridiculous. If we were to spend just 30 minutes in each neighborhood, it would take us about 10 hours. For reference, here is a map:
Of course, just visiting them wasn't enough. It was finally decided that we would go in order, starting with the 20th neighborhood working our way in. In each neighborhood, we had a challenge (something silly like: no speaking, speaking only in French, not using one hand, etc) and we had to take a picture in each. Some of us had personal challenges. One of my friends sent 20 postcards throughout the day, another invited people to her concert (she's a jazz singer). My personal challenge was simply to make it to all 20 districts as I had woken up with a stuffy nose and a bit of a sore throat.
Proud to report that we made it successfully to each neighborhood and it only took us 8 hours!! Definitely one of the coolest things I have done in Paris and with such lovely people :)
Running around the city all day, however, probably wasn't the smartest thing for my health. Luckily, it didn't backfire. Although I was still rather sick yesterday, I am feeling much better today. I had an important presentation this morning and am relieved/excited to report that it went quite well! I still have three presentations to go this week (oi), but the one today was the only one I cared about since the others are Pass/Not Pass.
Three more weeks and then finals will be over! I plan to have a much more quiet and relaxed weekend--get going on my final studying in some pretty Paris parks :)
No comments:
Post a Comment