Walks around Paris

Since we are moving out of Paris soon, I am trying to absorb as much of Paris as possible before we do so. There is so much to the city. Granted, I don't venture out and explore by myself too much, but there is so many areas of Paris where I haven't been before.

After grabbing lunch with a friend, we explored a little of Paris.

Yes, a scene from "Inception" was shot here

I like when trees create an arch like that

Poppy Flower

A different view of the Eiffel Tower

Interesting flower in a garden

I liked the color of this flower

Look I'm in New York!

Well......not really. =P The Statue of Liberty in New York City was actually a present from France to the United States. Being an iconic figure and representing liberty, this statue has been replicated all over the world. There are three replicas in Paris alone. One small one in the Jardin du Luxembourg, this fairly large (yet still smaller than the one in NYC) at a point in the Seine, and one in a museum that is the same size made from the mold of the original statue.

Hopefully the weather will be nice again before we leave so I can see a little more of Paris.

The Feschets are in town!

The other day, friends of ours came to Paris for a visit. Pierre is french so he was in the country visiting his family and they decided to take their 13 month old daughter for her first visit to Paris. Luckily it was a beautiful day and we were able to spend it acting like tourist.

First we took a nice stroll down the parks on the Champs-Élysées all the way to the Louvre.

The Louvre

Then we hopped onto a metro and made our way to Hotel de Ville to grab lunch. After lunch, we walked to Isle Saint Louis for some yummy Berthillon ice-cream. From there, we approached the Notre Dame from the back.....which I actually think is the more intresting side of the cathedral. 

The Feschets: Pierre, Anna and Chloe

 We rested for a little in the park behind the Notre Dame so little Chloe could eat. I always wanted to stop by that park, but never took the time. It's actually very pretty, and this time of the year, it's full of flowers too!

I'm pretty sure this is a rose, but it looks almost like a peony

Chloe. She's always smiling!

Our final toursitic activity of the day was to take a tour on the Seine by bateau mouche (the boat). It's an open top boat where they play a recording of facts for all the landmarks we passed. It was interesting prespective of the city and it was a lovely day to be outside too.

A rose window of the Notre Dame peeking through the trees

The view of the back of the Notre Dame

The Eiffel Tower

It was tiring, but kind of fun to be a tourist again, especially since we're leaving the city soon. It gave us an opportunity to revisit all the main areas of Paris.

Fall Weather

The Fall is here and the weather has been great, and the weather has also been horrible. We get a couple days of cold and rainy weather with gloomy skies and then a couple days of fresh weather with sunny skies. We try to take advantage of the nice days to walk outside. It has actually gotten pretty warm at some points!....in the 70's! (keep in mind, we're in Paris, not Miami =P)

Le Jardin du Luxembourg

Colors of Fall

Around this time of the year, there are a lot of public art displays/installations. We got to stumble by a couple during our walks.

This is a series someone made of all the countries represented by gigantic bear sculptures. It was in a great location too! Right in the lawns by the Eiffel tower!

Different counties on every bear

USA!

We also passed by a cute panda in front of a hotel:

We're definitely going to take advantage of the nice weather before it gets too cold!

Museum Visit

Today we visited the Musée d'Orsay. It is a very popular museum, but we never got around to visiting it. Until now. My sister wrote about it in her blog. You can click here to read further.

It is a much bigger museum than I thought. If I knew, I wouldn't have worn high heeled boots =P Nonetheless, it was very interesting to see. The museum carries several very famous pieces by artist like Monet, Van Gogh, Renoir and Degas (just to name a few). But, unfortunately, they did not allow pictures to be taken inside the museum.....for the most part at least. Like my sister said, the museum is located in an old train station. This provided for some very interesting architecture as well as some beautiful views. I snuck a picture in of the view from the opening of a clock window.

One of the clock windows from one of the restaurants

View of Paris and the Sacre Coeur from the window

Also, the other day we celebrated our one year anniversary.....which happened to also be the chinese holiday of Mid Autumn Moon Festival. We didn't do anything special since we just got back from an extravagant honeymoon cruise. So we just went out to dinner. On our way to dinner we got a beautiful view of the sunset by the Eiffel tower.

And on our way back, we got to see the bright full moon over the Seine River. 

Kevin's Visit

Kevin's in town! Well.......he was anyways. During his trip to London to attend a graduation, Kevin was nice enough to take the train over the Paris to visit me! Although he was only here for a little more then a day......it was quite packed!

First we visited the Sacre Coeur. I know......I take every tourist over there. But I think it has a magnificient view of the city, so it's definitely worth the trip over. After, we took the train to visit the Notre Dame. We got lunch around the area and ate delicious gelato. And of course, we went in the cathedral.

Inside the Notre Dame

From there, we took the train back toward the apartment and walked to the Arc de Triomphe. We stopped in several car showrooms on the way ^_~ After grabbing a coffee and resting our feet a little, we made our way over to Trocadero and the Eiffel Tower. Of course, we have to go up the tower for an impressive panoramic view of the city. It was close to sunset time, so the colors were beautiful as well.

Trocadero from the Eiffel Tower

 After a long day of walking and visiting sites, we worked up quite an appetite. Luckily, Germain helped us book a restaurant before hand so we got a good deal on dinner. They even served us a small amuse-bouche!

Tomato Soup

White Fish Carpaccio

Lamb with smoked salmon and tapenade crepes

Raspberry Tart

 The next day (today) we only had a couple hours before Kevin had to catch his train back to London. We decided to visit the Chinatown of Paris. With the intent of getting dim sum, Kevin found a place online with decent reviews. However, we didn't stay for a full meal at the restaurant because even though they were open to customers, the chefs were on break and eating for 45 minutes of our stay. So we left and ate somewhere else!

Kevin eating the only dimsum we got

It was packed 24 hours, but it is always nice to have visitors. He even left me a little cake as an early birthday present! Hope he enjoyed his stay!

Yum!

Summer Vacation!

Summer Vacation has started....for me at least. Germain still has a week of exams left then he'll be done too. After that, we have a couple of little trips planned before going back to Miami. For now, he's studying hard and I'm taking care of things around the apartment and I'm taking walks around the city too. It's been nice these past couple of days. Pretty warm at one point, but it's cooling down a little again so it's almost perfect weather right now.

The Alexandre III bridge.

View of the Eiffel Tower from under the bridge.

And here's a lamb chop dish from the other night at the restaurant. It was pretty good.

Lamb Chops with a side of Potato Gratin

Food

Germain cooked for me the other two nights because I had my big exam. Hehe......

Quiche Lorraine

Quiche and Salad

Herb Roasted Chicken with Fingerling Potatoes

So I just finished with my semester. I still have an oral exam this week, but the main test is done with. I don't think I did as well as I wanted to do, but I should have still done well. We'll see the grades in two or three weeks.

The weather is pretty warm now. There is still a cool breeze, but during the day it's pretty hot....and we don't have a/c! But it is definitely much better to take walks outside now. Its also light outside a lot later....like 10:30pm! This picture was taken at 9:30pm yesterday!

Eiffel Tower =)

Recently in Paris

The weather has been nicer lately in Paris.....not as cold, but not really hot yet. It's been raining off and on, but when it's not raining, we try to go out for walks. Even though Paris is a busy city, it has a lot of parks with a lot of trees and flowers. It's nice because it takes you away from the cars and buildings for a little bit. However, when the weather is nice....everyone goes out to the parks and gardens. Sometimes its more crowded there than on the streets!

Weeping Willow tree in the middle of the pond

Pretty flowers and cute wooden stairs in the back

 Paris is also very interesting to walk around. There's always something to see. Like this....It's a huge block of chocolate! They carve into the chocolate by hand. It really does look like two hippos in muddy water.

Chocolate Hippos

The weather has been interesting too. A little like Miami where it's raining one minute and the sun is shining bright the next. It's a little hard because you're not sure what to expect sometimes. But I guess it's pockets of rain clouds over the city that come and pass. 

Dark rain cloud over the Eiffel Tower

Spring time!

The weather has been so nice here lately. It's been in the high 60's low 70's. We can open our windows during the day and go for walks. We also changed time last night so now the sun will be up a lot later.

So we took advantage of the nice weather and went out for walks the whole weekend.

On Friday we walked around Montmartre area. That's the area around the Sacre Coeur. I really like that area. It's like a little village (without all the tourist of course =P) We found a windmill!

On Saturdays, we walked around the Eiffel tower. There were soooo many people! But it was a beautiful day.

The fountain on the other side of the street from the tower.

Today, we went to a park by my school. It was nice...but a lot of people. I guess everyone is happy about being able to sit outside after being indoors all winter. We wanted to get ice-cream afterwards, but every ice-cream store had a huge line! We didn't wait =P

Pretty tree

A creek in the park

Magnolia flowers

A pretty daffodil

Hopefully it will be like this for a while....not too cold, not too hot.