Just Another Day in Paris

Our day started yesterday at Blé Sucré, an adorable French bakery with croissants rated the best in Paris! Just before arriving at the bakery I met up with a friend, Chrissy, who is spending a couple weeks in Paris. I actually wasn't hungry at the time (I ate on the train) but Chrissy insisted on buying me a pain au choclat (chocolate croissant) to save and eat later. We continued on to Marché d'Aligre, both an open air and covered market. It was crowed to say the least! It was easy to see why with the vendors selling everything from cheese to flowers to exotic fruit. You can't imagine the colors and smells! The vendors would cut open some of their fruit to offer to potential buyers and as I walked through my nose was greeted with the smells of fresh oranges and mangos and grapefruit. There was also the not as pleasant smells of fresh seafood and cut red meat. While walking around, we also stopped at a chocolate shop to pick up some ganache. I decide to try a pear, a cherry, and a red fruit ganache. Probably some of the best chocolate I've ever had!

Most of our day, though, was spent at Père Lachaise. I am embarrassed to admit I didn't know what Père Lachaise was at first. I soon learned that it is a beautiful cemetery in Paris. It is also HUGE (over 100 acres). Luckily Chrissy had been there before and had an app showing where people's graves are located. If not for her and her app, I could have wandered around this cemetery and never found anything. As you walk in you are greeted by the momument entitled Aux Morts (The Dead). We both remarked on the fact that this cemetery, while beautiful, is also quiet depressing. The graves are adorning with weeping women, like there is no life after death. This monument is no exception to this fact.

Top: Jim Morrison, Chopin, Gertrude Stein Bottom: Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf 

We continued on the grave of Jim Morrison. Unlike the graves surrounding his tombstone, Jim Morrison's resting place is enclosed my a fence. And both the fence and the grave are adorned with mementos left by fans and admirers. To the point that the cemetery has thought of expelling him because of these disruptions. For now, a fence is protecting the tombstone. We then headed to see Oscar Wilde's burial sight. His tombstone also had to be protected from adoring fans. Instead of a fence, though, Wilde's tomb is surrounded by plexiglass to prevent people from putting on lipstick and kissing his grave. From there we decided to try to find the resting place of Gertrude Stein. After walking around the area in which we were supposed to find her, we found an unofficial guide leading a couple to the correct spot. While the guide was an incredibly strange man, he taught us that Alice B Toklas, Stein's lover, is buried with Gertrude Stein but because both names were not allowed on the front, Alice's name appears on the back of the headstone. While admiring the sculptures on people's graves, we walked to find the famous French musician Edith Piaf. All we really had to do to find her was to look were a large group was crowded and we found her. She is buried with her last husband and her father. 

Hungry from all the walking, Chrissy and I made our way to Le Dôme cafe. A restaurant once frequented by F Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemmingway and Henry Miller. Being a fan of these authors and a lover of the 1920s, I was ecstatic to eat in the same place as a few of my literary heros. And of course I imagined that I was sitting in the exact place as some of the Greats.

The Best Kind of Prize is a Surprise!

So I should have written and posted this at least a week ago. But I am terrible at remembering to write on here and so I am doing it now. Better late than never, right? One thing I'm going to work on this year is posting blogs more regularly. Meaning, I need to find more interesting things to do that are worthy of posts! Challenge accepted.

Surprise! This winter break I went back to the US to spend Christmas and New Year with my family. And no one, except for my dad, knew about it. It was definitely one of the best surprises that I have ever been a part of.

To be honest, the original plan was for me to come home for the break. Back in July, when I was looking over my schedule for the year, I saw that there was a two week break in December/January and I wanted to come home for it. I have never missed Christmas at home before and I didn't want to start this Christmas. So my dad and I started looking at round-trip plane tickets. To France in September and back in December. My limit was a thousand dollars, and I didn't really want to even go that high. We looked and looked and looked. My dad found a couple well priced tickets but they always sold before we could buy them. I realized it wasn't meant to be and we started looking at one-way tickets. Around the end of July/early August, we bought a one-way ticket to France. I was disappointed but there was no way I could afford two thousand something dollar tickets. My family was incredibly disappointed as well but accepted it because that was just the way it had to be.

About a week or two later, I was home for the last time to go to the doctor and dentist (I needed to get those out of the way before leaving). And my dad calls me over to his office. He told me to bring him a book, any book. "Okaayyy?" I thought before grabbing one and walking over. When I got there he said, "do you still want to come home for Christmas?" And my answer was like duh, of course I want to come home for Christmas. He had found a round-trip that was in our price range and we decided to make it a surprise. That was in August.

Fast forward four months. Thanks to my dad and I being pretty decent secret-keepers and my dad's fabulous acting skills, our surprise was still a surprise. I was so anxious. I thought that somehow, in the home stretch, I would blab. And I was counting down the days, I couldn't wait to be home.

I travelled all day on the 19th. The problem with that was I didn't talk to my older sister all day and that NEVER happens. So she was growing suspicious. She voiced her thoughts to my mom and other sisters but they all told her not to get her hopes up. She did anyway.

My dad picked me up in Chicago. "They have no idea," he assured me. I was getting nervous. I so badly wanted this to be the greatest surprise ever! Three hours later we got home. I tried to sneak inside but my suspicious sisters were looking for dad out the window. (He should have dropped me off around the corner or something). They saw my hair and knew I was home. I walk in to shouts of "I KNEW IT. I KNEW YOU WERE COMING HOME!" Not exactly a surprise, but we couldn't be happier.

But one person was still in the dark. My brother was at work when all of this occurred. And he suspected nothing. An hour or so later, my dad went to pick him up. Meanwhile, I hid in his room. My brother was talking to dad when he walked into his room. It was dark and I jumped up and yelled "BOO!" He knew that someone was there but at first he thought it was a sister's friend or something. He still had no idea, silly brother. A second later he realized it was me. "What are you doing here?" He was the only one who was 100% surprised.

Even though my sisters had their doubts that I was staying away for the holidays, it was probably the best Christmas ever! I miss them so much already but I am so grateful that I was able to make it home.