Back to Paris

My first weekend back in Paris has been quite eventful.  Although a solid 50% of it was spent on the couch in my apartment.  First of all, I am so excited to have a few of my friends from Michigan join me in Paris this semester.  Having a little UofM RC French reunion in the city of love was the perfect welcome back present!

Felix Faure in the Snow 

Thursday night was my good friend Sofia's birthday, so we took her to dinner at a restaurant called Aux Tonneaux des Halles. For those of you who have a craving for steak frites while in Paris, I would certainly recommend this place.  The atmosphere is totally relaxed and there are no reservations required (unheard of in Paris) and if you don't trust my opinion that the frites are so crispy even my mother would approve, you can check out its reviews on Paris by Mouth or David Lebovitz' blog (a hilarious american food writer living in Paris).  The restaurant is in the 1st arrondissement, located right next Les Halles and the horrific underground shopping hell that Parisians like to call Forum des Halles (seriously, don't go there).  So, despite its precarious location, this place is pretty good for a simple steak without the sometimes annoying pretention of parisian restaurants.

Bypassing the time spent at the bar and moving on to Sunday, a day spent waddling through the snowy streets of the marais (paris' Jewish neighborhood) with friends.  Sunday was an amazing day from the second my roommate Casey and I walked out of the door, that is to say, as soon as I started trekking down our block, I was pelted with snowballs by a French family enjoying the unusual Paris weather.  Needless to say, retaliation was necessary and Casey and I had a brief snow battle with our neighbors. After getting out all of that pent-up energy, we headed to the Marais to meet up with some friends of mine from back home.  After a delicious lunch of falafel and eggplant at Chez Mariane, we wandered around the neighborhood only to find some top-notch street art and vintage clothing shops. Hilarity ensued, especially considering the fact that the snow quickly turned to solid sheets of ice (Parisians have no concept of salting or plowing it seems), falls abound.

Street Performer in the Marais

Now time for classes....

Avignon/Fontainebleau

So, It has been quite a while since my last post but due to some requests from one of my favorite UAW workers (hi Sue!), I am going to try and post in my blog more regularly in the coming semester.  For now, I'm just going to update the world wide web about what went on in the last few weeks of my first semester in the city of light, love and dog poop.
Perhaps the most exciting thing came in the form of my lovely mother.  She was able to take 10 days out of her busy retired lady schedule (just kidding mom, I know the dog keeps you busy with her own Parisian lifestyle....aka defecating in the house) and come all the way to France for 10 days.  We started off with a lovely week in Paris.  We went to several lovely dinners, where of course I fabulously embarrassed myself in front of attractive French waiters.  I never fail to meet attractive guys while hanging out with my mom, on the other hand, I also never fail to make a fool of myself either. C'est la vie or ma vie I should say.

Sur le pont d'Avignon

Ok, so after walks, museums, baguettes and boeuf in the big city, mama bear and I hopped on a train to Provence.  Specifically, the ancient walled city of Avignon.  Avignon used to be (back in the medieval day) the seat of the Catholic church, so in addition to the bridge immortalized by the French children's song (and totally bizarre dance), there is an enormous Papal Palace that offers tours.
We had a great time enjoying the views not only around the city, but also in the restaurants we chose for dinner.  That is to say, one night we had a full on view of the world's most awkward first date.  From history to humor....Avignon certainly did not disappoint.

Before coming home for break, I hit up one more French monument...the palace of Fontainebleau (not to be confused with the hotel in Miami).  My lovely roommates and I decided to get out of Paris for the day and see something other than the inside of the metro and tourists in white sneakers, we settled on Fontainebleau which is about an hour outside of the city.  After the revolution and the sacking as well as  perpetual hatred of Versailles by all French people, Napoleon decided to instead restore the royal Palace of Fontainebleau (originally built in the 16th century) and use it as a symbol of the grandeur of his regime.  This means, that the Palace displays many personal affects of Napoleon in addition to tours of royal chambers.  Of course we all know that Napoleon had a little man complex and made up for his short stature with authoritarianism. However, until seeing his military uniforms etc. at Fontainebleau I had no idea that he was really the size of a middle school girl.  So, it goes without saying that I would recommend a journey to Fontainebleau almost entirely for the purpose of comparing Napoleon's shoe size with that of your 12 year old daughter....

Casey and I outside of Fontainebleau