More art. More food.

After a successful oral presentation on the history of French pastries, Thursday marked another delightful excursion with my fabulous friend (and fellow UCSD student - small world!) Jen. She and I have become good friends over the past month and a half, facilitated greatly by our shared love of yummy desserts and long conversation :) In Parisian gourmet lore, much ado is made about the hot chocolate at Angelina's, an historic salon de the on the rue Rivoli just across the street from the Jardin de Tuileries and a block from the Louvre. We decided to make it our dessert date for the week and had a joyful reunion after being away on our respective vacations for a week. Anyway, after a long walk from Notre Dame to the restaurant, we made it inside just as it began to rain. Yay Paris. Luckily there was no wait to be seated, so we sat down in the beautiful dining room dating from 1901. Ornate gold molding and wall murals abounded! We told our waitress that we wanted to split a pot of hot chocolate and a dessert, and she quite rudely spat back that if we were splitting hot chocolate, we each had to order a dessert. When we didn't have a second order ready, she stormed away and said she would come back when we decided. When she came back, she literally stormed away from the table after writing down our order. We sat there SHOCKED but almost chuckling at the absurdity of it all, and then Jen almost did start outright laughing when she returned with our order and - I am not exaggerating this in the slightest - SLAMMED our cups and plates and food on to the table, stuffed the check under a plate, and stormed away. You'd think she had better things to do :) But besides the atrocious service, the hot chocolate was indeed the stuff legends are made of! It was less intensely dark than the one Jen and I had at Christian Constant, but we also had whipped cream to add to it so I'm sure that made a difference. However, all in all, the price, the hike and the super accommodating service makes it probably a one-time stop in my Parisian life :P Friday was a great day for exercising my legs and my brain, and of course eating to offset the intense calorie burning! I started off the morning by walking to the Centre Pompidou in the Marais, which takes a little more than a half hour and is an essentially straight shot from my apartment past the Sorbonne, across the Seine to Notre Dame, past Hotel de Ville (Paris' city hall) and into the heart of the Marais. Even I couldn't get lost - although I might actually call my sense of direction "decent" after all of my walking for the past couple of months.

The view down the Seine from the bridge to Notre Dame (you can see it on the left)

A view of Ile-St-Louis in the middle of the Seine

I met Connie at the entrance to the museum and we there right when it opened - no crowds! The best part is now that I have my Catho student ID, I get in free to all the permanent exhibits at essentially all museums in Paris! Sweet deal :) My experience in the Pompidou completely solidified in my mind that I don't like modern art. I find it hard to appreciate canvases painted in one solid color, and I often find it disturbing to watch videos of naked women mud wrestling. However, there were rooms with Matisse and Picasso that were a lot of fun to see, because I actually think they made art! Connie and I passed two school groups taking tours in the museum, one from an elementary school and one from a high school, and we discussed how great it was to see art education beginning so early. It's a shame that we miss out on a lot of that in American schools, due to budget cuts as well as just I think less of an emphasis on the arts. Two hours was totally sufficient to feel like I had seen the museum, and it was the perfect time to set out in search of more falafel.

Picasso!

Matisse!

Connie and I met up with my friend from fashion class, Dorene (who is a senior at UCSD who I met during rush my sophomore year!) and decided to try the other "best falafel in Paris" at L'As du Falafel (The Ace of Falafel). It's essentially next door to Chez Hannah and we had to compare the two. We sat down inside, avoiding the long line at the window, and ordered falafel special sandwiches. I had a little heart attack when I saw the HUGE pita stuffed with red and white cabbage, tomatoes, fried eggplant, tomatoes, tahini and a big handful of FALAFEL BALLS! There's no way to describe it other than heaven, so I'll let the pictures do the talking. It was a tie between here and Chez Hannah in my mind, although I didn't have the sandwich at Chez Hannah so it wasn't a scientific comparison :P Either one, you can't lose! We decided to investigate the Jewish bakeries on the same street, which alongside croissants and baguettes sold strudel, bagels, rugelach, and all sorts of other Jewish delights. Obviously, we had to pick some goodies up for dessert. I didn't fully realize the crazy mix of people who live and work in the Marais until today, when we passed by a gay bar, an Orthodox Jewish man and his sons, a falafel stand, and an exclusive and expensive tea salon in literally a span of 5 minutes. Just another sign of hope that we really can all coexist! It's definitely my favorite area of Paris, there's so much diversity in restaurants, sights and shopping that it would be impossible to do everything I want to. On Saturday, Connie and I made a date for afternoon tea at Mariage Freres, a Parisian institution and world-famous for its teas. They have a few tea salons throughout the city and many upscale restaurants serve their products, but of course we chose the one in the Marais! We walked through the store to get to the salon, passing by floor-to-ceiling displays of hundreds of varieties of tea, tea paraphernelia, books and candies and jams made with tea. The dining room was beautiful, decorated in an Art Deco style with pale yellow walls, palm fronds and antique posters advertising travel to Africa and other exotic destinations. The waiters (all male) were quite classy in ALL white - starched suits, shirts, bow ties and gloves! In the background, a tea "barista" stood behind a bar and churned out perfectly brewed pots of tea for the waiters to bring to their customers. Connie and I each decided to order Tea Time, which came with a pot of tea of our choice and an assortment of desserts and pastries. Choosing a tea was harder than it sounds - the tea menu took up five pages of tiny print (see left)! I finally settled on Fall in Love, a black tea with vanilla. Let's just say I definitely did fall in love when it arrived, already perfectly brewed and at that all-important temperature that won't burn your tongue but still is hot :) To our delight, we then received a plate with miniatures of a madeleine, financier, macaron, creme brulee and panna cotta. They would have been great anyway, but all of Mariage Frere's pastries are made with some kind of tea; that means our madeleine was Earl Grey, our financier was green tea, our macaron was some kind of rose, and the creme brulee and panna cotta were also infused with the flavor and scent of a Mariage Freres tea. Connie is a total foodie too, so we had a fun time guessing each flavor! All in all it was quite a splurge but completely worth it - I could get used to a life that allowed for fancy afternoon tea every day with my friends :) We broke character, however, when we noticed that the two men next to us who had ordered the full brunch had left a WHOLE SCONE on one of their bread plates. That is seriously one of my pet peeves - that scone probably cost literally 4 euros! When we got up to leave, Connie casually snagged it and handed it off outside. Let's just say I enjoyed a cup of tea and a warm, delicious scone with pumpkin jam this morning :) Today I'm spending a lazy Sunday catching up on writing my film paper and TV shows. Last night a group of us went out with one of the girls' French friends to a bar and then a dance club, but since the French don't eat dinner until 8 they don't even leave the house on Saturday nights until 11 - and when I left to go home at 2:30 I met with much joking disapproval. I think sleep ranks a little higher in my book :) But it was absolutely hilarious to hear the music at the club, ranging from (I'm not joking) Sweet Home Alabama and the Macarena to the Black Eyed Peas and techno. Who would've guessed? It's getting very cold now, especially for this California girl, so I'm definitely finding more ways to stay inside and letting myself splurge more often on a hot cup of coffee and a croissant. I think it's worth it :)