Ploafmaster General

So I’m back in America now, and I’m hanging out at my mother-in-law’s place until Saturday evening when I return to Richmond. It’s good to be home, and now I can return to my normal Internerding.

I think a small post script on my trip is in order, though, since I stopped posting after a few days into the vacation. Because I’m feeling lazy on this Friday morning, however, I’ll make a numbered list.

1. Breizh Cafe was the best meal I ate. I had a “complete” which was essentially an omelette on top of a crepe – eggs, ham, and cheese, and a buckwheat crepe. Man, that was tasty. For dessert I had a “crepe briochine” which was a sweet crepe with caramelized bananas and home made caramel sauce. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. We all shared a bottle of hard cider from the French countryside to finish up.
2. The Louvre was incredible – the Mona Lisa is lame, but the apartments of Napoleon III rivaled Versailles for ornament.
3. I would totally go back to Paris again, and I definitely want to go back to France. Perhaps the wine country next time?
4. I have about 9 rolls of film to develop in addition to Val’s 1200 digital pictures. That’s a lot of photo to sort through…but I’m sure there will be serious hotness in there out of all that.

That’s it for now. I have a lot of catching up to do otherwise – movie trailers, articles to read, memes to explore. Muxtape seems to be next on my list as soon as it stops being dead.

Easter mass at Notre Dame was beautiful – especially the Gregorian music. Afterwards we were soundly ripped of in a tourist trap restaurant with a friendly waiter, tasty food, and super high prices. I made up for it afterwards, though, with a crepe from a little stand on the curb…with butter, sugar, and Grand Marnier. Oh my, this was delicious. The fresh, hot crepe turned everything else on it into a tasty syrup.

We took a short break back at the hotel to change out of our Easter duds, and headed over towards the Catacombs – which we discovered are currently closed for some repairs or something. So a strike there. Instead, we visited Musée d’Orsay to see some of the Impressionist paintings from the likes of Monet, Manet, Degas, and Van Gough.

After THAT, we walked across Pont Royale to be completely overwhelmed by the impressive former palace that is The Louvre. More pictures, more walking, and we took a train to grab dinner in a random part of town at what seemed to be a Belgian chain restaurant specializing in mussels. After all that, we’ were pretty much exhausted, so we’ve been taking it easy this evening so I can nurse what may be a growing cold…and also because Valerie seems to have planned a veritable marathon of activities for tomorrow…oh my…

So yeah, we never were able to eat at the Hidden Kitchen. Apparently, there was some computer virus, and the reservation was lost, or something. I don’t know – I’ll take them at their word since their apologetic reply came with a heavy helping of detailed suggestions for eateries (and wine bars!) around town.

For dinner instead, after getting rained upon while killing myself to climb Montmartre and see Sacre Coeur, we ate at some random restaurant at the bottom of the hill. The service was way slow, but HOLY CRAP, I had Duck Confit for dinner. That. Was. Awesome. Valerie described it as tasting like “dark meat turkey with the BEST gravy.” I just know it was amazing, and fell apart from the fork. Oi. And it was 11 Euros, which is like $16, but I assure you it would have been double states-side.

That’s it for tonight. Tomorrow morning we go to Easter Mass! Bon Nuit!

Today we had a later start, sleeping in a bit to recover from our long day of travel. After showering and dressing, we headed to Ile de la Cite to check out Cathedrale Notre Dame de Paris, which, I must say, WAS AMAZING. The picture you see above, in fact, was taken by Valerie inside near the back.

After Notre Dame we headed to La Conciergerie‎, which was originally a palace before being converted to a prison – it’s where Marie Antoinette spent her last days. After THAT, we headed over to Saint Chapelle‎, a smaller yet incredibly more ornate church on the island.

Food highlights include Brasserie Les Deux Palais‎ where we had cappuccino, croissants, and the most amazing orange juice I’ve ever imbibed, and then some random crepe shop on the sidewalk where I had a sweet crepe with applesauce. Dinner, which was supposed to be at The Hidden Kitchen (it’s mysteriously fallen through, it would seem), is to be determined, but I imagine it will be excellent regardless.

So I’m writing this from my hotel room in Paris after a long exhausting period of travel.

We left on time from Dulles yesterday and even arrived in Amsterdam twenty minutes early. Then our flight to Paris was delayed an hour and twenty minutes. Then our train from Charles de Gaulles had to stop inexplicably in between stations for about a half hour. Then it stopped for good at Gare de Nord, one stop ahead of where we needed to transfer. Then we went through a rigamarole in that station to get our tourist passes for the metro. Then we finally, three hours after landing in France, made it to our hotel.

We are in a freaking awesome part of town.

There are loads of students around since were’ in the middle of some of Paris’ major universities, which means there are loads of amazing looking places to eat with some prices that seem amazing even after the exchange rate. We had dinner tonight at a restaurant called Le Grange on Rue Mouffetard where I tried (and thoroughly enjoyed) escargot. We had a half bottle of nondescript Cote de Rhone red wine which was amazingly fruit-forward for an Old World 2006. And the sorbet du cassis was AMAZING and flavorful. Valerie’s mousse au chocolat tasted like whipped chocolate chips. WOW.

And finally, after about a half hour of shut-eye back in l’hotel, we cruised out to see La Tour Eiffel at night. I’m seriously hoping some of my long exposures turned out alright…

Anyway, off I go. It’s 11:45 PM here, and I’m bushed. More later as the awesomeness unfolds!