I love days off :) On Wednesday, Jen and I investigated the Jardin des Plantes (botanical gardens) next to the mosque, and it was kind of sad because all the flowers that I imagine would be there in the spring and summer were dead... But it was still nice to walk around - it turns out that there is a natural history museum, a menagerie and several other buildings within the park, so it reminded us of a mini Balboa Park!
Then we stopped for tea at my favorite local joint - Jen hadn't been to the mosque before, and their mint tea is the perfect mid-day snack!
On Friday, Jen and Connie and I met up at Berthillon on Ile St. Louis. The shop is FAMOUS in Paris for its ice cream, and we had to try it! It definitely surpassed my wildest dreams, although the scoops were definitely not generously sized for the price :P I could easily eat 3 scoops, which would definitely not happen at Baskin Robbins! I tried caramel au beurre sale (salted butter caramel), apricot and vanilla with chunks of flourless chocolate cake. I almost died, they were all so good! Berthillon is especially famous for its fruit flavors (all of its products are made on-site and with all-natural ingredients), and the apricot literally tasted like I was eating an apricot. YUM!
Friday afternoon, Connie and I walked around the Montparnasse Cemetary, where lots of famous (or just well-connected) people are buried. We passed the grave of Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Serge Gainsbourg (the most famous French pop singer like, ever), and just took in the beautiful fall colors among the crazy assortment of headstones and crypts. Kind of a weird field trip but made for some good pictures :)
Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre share a grave
This person isn't famous but he had my absolute favorite headstone EVER. A giant clay pelican? I like this guy.
For dinner on Friday night, I met up with Breanna! Ironically, she was scheduled to come to Paris with her program from Spain two weeks after she visited with Julia and Alex, but I was gone to Bretagne the rest of the weekend. We decided to try a restaurant called Pomze (like "pommes" or apples), which is apple-themed and makes all of their dishes with some kind of apple. It was just lovely to see Breanna again, and the meal turned out to be hands-down the best food I've eaten in Paris! Not cheap, but AMAZING!
We started our meal with creamy apple butter spread on delicious rolls (that even had a hint of apple!) and a glass of hard apple cider, followed with salads topped by chopped fresh apples, goat cheese and cashews. Our plat was "croustillant de saumon," a salmon filet layered with thin slices of apple, baked inside a crispy filo dough crust and surrounded by a citrus-apple sauce. For dessert we split "pain perdu" (basically French toast but WAAYY better) with vanilla ice cream and caramel apple sauce as well as a chocolate mousse made with Calvados, an apple liqueur. I was in an absolute food coma at the end and I will absolutely be returning with my Paris friends before I leave!
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