Snack Attack: France - Friday, June 26

An email to my mother...

I'm glad I got to talk to you today! It was worth it getting the phone...it's been nice to hear familiar voices every couple days and I feel more accessible in case there were some sort of emergency. I forgot to comment on Michael Jackson while we were on the phone....so weird! 50 is so young...I'll be interested to see what the autopsy uncovers, if anything. ok, on to the daily update...much of this you already heard on the phone, but i always reply to your emails first so it ends up being a template for the ones I send to everyone else, so I have to put it all in. And this way you've got it all on record!

Even though I fell asleep at the grand hour of 9 pm last night (Good thing I've heard Paris nightlife is not amazing, bc I can't stay awake long enough to experience any of it), I forced myself to sleep in until 8 this morning. i turned on cnn to have in the background as i got ready (my new hotel has 2 english channels..cnn and bbc, i usually switch back and forth to whichever is least boring at the moment, and i must say, i've started to miss watching csi in french like i did at the old hotel). I did a double take back to the tv when i thought i heard the crazy news that michael jackson had died...and it was true. so weird!!! all day long today i'd walk by stores that were playing old MJ hits, especially thriller. apparently the french will miss him a lot, and per the BBC, so shall the chinese and japanese. so after watching the news for awhile i finally got out and headed to the metro.

i stopped along the way of course for a morning pastry, pain au chocolat. delicoius, as per usual. my original plan was to visit the arc de triomhe and then walk along champs de elysees, then come to the louvre and do the lourvre tour. on the metro, i completely forgot about my plans and just got off at the louvre and went straight to the museum. it reminded me of disneyland for the following reasons 1. endless crowds going in all directions 2. asian tourists taking pictures of absolutely everything and 3. way way too many children. i forced my way through the crowds to see all the main sites and then went over to the less crowded wing with ancient artifacts from iran, iraq, mesopotamia, egypt, etc. that was enjoyable of course because of the artwork, but also because of the lack of crowds and the perfectly temperature controlled air conditioned rooms. as i was leaving the louvre i suddenly remembered that i'd skipped the entire morning portion of my plan. i decided that i liked it as a morning plan, and pushed it back to when i return from nice and cannes.

last night as i was leaving the internet cafe, a sudden downpour came on and i was literally drenched on my way back to the hotel. the forecast had said rain, and it was raining when i woke up this morning, so i dressed for it. but by this point the sun had come out and my jeans and sweater were too hot so i went back to the hotel to change. while there, i remembered that my procrastinator self had kept putting on buying train tickets, and i still had none, although i'm leaving tomorrow for nice. so i went into a slight panic, consulted my trust rick steeves paris guide book's train section and found a list of offices that sell train tickets throughout the city. lucky for me, there was one just around the corner from my hotel. so i headed over, and got my tickets to nice, to cannes, and then back to paris. the rest of my trip has been pretty organized, but that was cutting it kind of close for my liking...oops.

feeling less panicked, i got back on the metro and headed to avenue victor hugo, which had a number of patisseries and chocolatiers on my list to hit up and let me tell you, it is a glorious avenue. for starters, there was an aerosoles store right there with a big soldes (sale) sign in the window!! i switched over to my tennis shoes the other day for comfort's sake, but here was my chance to get a less ugly and cute outfit-clashing comfortable shoe! I found a pair for 49 euros and put them on right outside the store. voila! i was a whole new woman! back on track i came across a chocolatier that also had ice cream. i got a chocolate orange entremets (personal sized dessert....often with layers of cake and mousse, in this case layers of ice cream) and it was a-mazing, the best thing i've eaten so far!! the top was a thin layer orange gelee with tiny pieces of candied orange peel. then, there was a layer of white chocolate orange ice cream, that tasted a lot like a sorbet. then a layer of chocolate ice cream with small pieces of malted chocolate. anyone who has had thrifty ice cream's chocolate malted crunch flavor...this was like a high class version of that. then on the very bottom were crumbled pieces of a chocolate crust. just writing about it i want to eat it again!!! i also got 2 surprise chocolates....one a success: dark chocolate with a soft dark center and one a non-success: a milk chocolate ball filled with hazelnut chocolate cream.

i realized it was getting late so i hopped back on the metro to make it to the pere lachaise cemetary before it closed at 6. I hadn't originally planned to visit the cemetary b/c i get easily creeped out and didn't want to have nightmares, but sean (who studies abroad in paris) insisted that it was his favorite spot and would not be creepy. he was right! the cemetary is beautiful, filled with trees and pathways for you to wander and admire the elaborate gravestones. some of these things are really huge, and not like any gravestones i'd seen before. i stopped by the famous graves: oscar wilde, edith piaf, jim morrisson, chopin, and a few others. then wandered a little on my own, but the cemetary was closing so i had to cut it short.

so now onto nice...i don't have a set out plan for my few days in the south, i'm mostly just hoping for lots of sun. tomorrow will be a train filled day, but i arrive in the afternoon, so hopefully i'll have something interesting to report on!

Love,