Macaron and Mazes

Klutz

Day 10

Tuesday,  May 24

Art gallery in the air on our walk to the boulangerie
in Monmartre

Class (intensive workshopping), boulangerie for lunch, then we tried again at the Musee de la Vie Romantique. Success this time! We saw the paintings and artifacts from the romantic period in France, and I added a few artistic dopplegangers to my collection. Then we sipped espresso in the garden and read for class (I know, I know). The lives we're living now do not exist anywhere except for hollywood period pieces, and I am happily playing the role of the ideal Parisian. Suddenly the garden is booming...with older ladies...this must be quite the hotspot for the 60+ crowd. We took that as our que to move along. Ha. 

Macaron at Cafe Lauduree

We jumped on the metro to the Champs d'Elysees and had macaron at Cafe Lauduree, which is uber glamourous and lovely and delicious. If I had 8euro to spend on cookies every day, I would. Thats how good it is. Even though these snooty french waiters take their time with us because we speak english. We really haven't had any problems with the language barrier or french people being "rude" like the stereotype--as far as I can tell, if you make an effort to be polite and say "madame" and "monsieur" then they'll try to figure out what you're saying. We poked around a bit in the shops, then moseyed on down toward Concorde taking a little break in the Jardin du Tuilerie. Then it got cold, and I was wearing a dress so we moved on, walking down the same street until we found ourselves outside the Louvre. We checked out the grounds and stumbled upon a fashion photo shoot, and a red carpet event, and a conspicuous pair of pants in the hedge labyrinth. With that, we figured it was about time for some wine. So after a quick stop at a supermarche, we head across the Seine to Pont Neuf (a little outcropping island park) to sit with the locals and watch the boats and ducks as the sun goes down. I love hanging out with fellow english nerds because the conversation is good, and these particular nerds aren't the pretentious literary snoot types. Intelligent without taking it too seriously. Nice. 

From the Jardin du Tuileries, you can see all
the way to the Arc du Triomphe behind the
Concorde down the Champs d' Elysees

The sun went down, and Diana and I headed home to grab our laptops and post up in the bar/cafe in our building. The French do not care if you have homework, though, so we didn't get too much done between all the chatting. At least they like to talk about Apollinaire (a personal favorite of mine), and they like the opera, and they speak Italian too. Its not your typical bar chat, but I can't even be surprised at this point. We had to convince them to let us leave though, because when you have a sonnet due at 10am, being out at 2am is, perhaps, a bad idea.

...It is impossible to fit the Louvre in one camera frame.

Aaaand Day 9. Voila.