Snack Attack: France - Tuesday, June 23

hi mom!!

the internet in my hotel is down, so im at an internet cafe...the hotel has american keyboards, the cafe does not, so dont mind the typos.

i fell asleep at the grand hour of 6 pm last night i was so exhuasted. then i slept 13 hours and got up at 7 this morning feeling a lot better. i went on a historic paris walk from my book this morning. well actually first i went all the way to this specific place i wanted to try for breakfast with some amazing sounding chocolate raspberry pastry but they were closed for the week due to some sort of emergency (or so i gathered from the sign taped in the window). so instead i wandered to another patisserie and got a pain de chocolat...delicious but i wanted more chocolat in it.

then i started my tour at notre dame, lucky for me im an early riser on european time so i beat most the crowds. it the church is stunning and reminded me a lot of st pauls cathedral in london. i then saw the left bank and walked all over the 6th arrondonissment? which is amazingly adorable. i kept taking detours to check out patisseries i saw/not following the tour directions correctly and getting lost/not knowing how to read a map properly. lucky for me, not understqnding the directions let me straight to the jardin de luxembourg which is now without a doubt my favorite place in the world. it seems straight out of a novel...the best park ever to sit and read a book or have a picnic. i loved the pond in the middle with all these little sailboats that children push away with sticks when they come to the edges, complete with one pirate ship. i almost wanted to cry when i left i loved it so much.

i got back on track with my tour and ended up at st chepeille, a tiny church with wall to wall, almost floor to ceiling stain glass windows. then i saw the palais de justice (supreme court) and the consigier (cant remember spelling right now, but i know thats way off), the prison where people were kept before going to the guillotine, including marie antoinette.

i then walked along the seine and saw some cute neighborhood parks and the oldest bridge in paris. i also saw the oldest tree, planted in 1602. the walk was over and i was hungry so i set off to find poilane, one of the most famous breadmakers in paris. it took me twice as long as planned due to my map reading skills and then when i finally found it the girls working there were totally rude!!!! so far everyone has been super polite to me and most enjoy my pathetic attempts to order in french but no one here even offered to help. its a tiny shop and 3 girls were just standing around. they helped everyone else who came in, so i just left and decided not to give them my business. on my way to find something else for lunch i stumbled across a chocolate shop with amazing chocolates and got a box of 4, i havent eaten them yet so will report on that later. i also came across laduree, the creator of the french macaron!!!!! i got a rose, a caramel, and a mint. they were perfection...by far the best macarons ive ever had.

i had afternoon plans to go to the orsay museum so i decided to get something nearby and picnic in tuilleries, a park in front of the louvre. i grabbed a sandwich (which i now realize is the only non pastry thing ive eaten in almost 48 hours) and laid down on the grass. once i sat down there was no getting up, i was sooo tired from walking all day, so orsay plans were postponed. when i was finally ready to get up i went over to ile st louis (a posh residential island with lots of eateries, reminds me of balboa island near newport beach). i got some sorbet from famous ice cream shop berthillion...pqssion fruit and rqspberry orange...delicious!

i was then pretty tuckered out so i hopped on the metro home. i stopped into a grocery store to grab something to throw together for dinner. lucky for me, they had some bread some poilane, so i get to try it now anyway. i got some brie to go along with and am looking forward to enjoying it on my balcony.

ok the keyboard is driving me clinically insane...this email took almost an hour to type!!!! so im off. tomorrow is my day trip to verseilles and im really loking forward to it and will have more to report on then. i hope your bday card arrives on time!!!

love,

patty