Paris from my Phone

À Bientôt !

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Monday Catch-Up

I'm currently waiting for my friend to pop some photos up online of our Saturday night, where we went out to a bar called "L'International" for a free gig, feat. Baston. In the meantime, here's a scoop of photos that hadn't quite yet managed to find their way onto the blog.

 

Me & my friend enjoying "Breakfast in America". My photo is shamefully stolen from her instagram account.

 My sister sent me a photo of some Hummingbird brownie she'd made, prompting me to give baking in my tiny little oven a go. The only problem was that I had no scales, & had to guess all the quantities. They turned out pretty well, considering, even if I do say it myself!

On Wednesday, I went with some girls to see "Gravity" at the cinema in 3D. I loved it, even if the plot was a little predictable. It was one of the most stressful things I've seen recently, because the whole plot axes on tension & the fear of what will go wrong next up in space. The whole idea terrifies & fascinates me! It was very cathartic, & I was buzzing with pent up adrenalin all the way home. We managed to catch some more of the Christmas market before the movie, but we didn't buy anything.

I'll leave you with this photo of our new friend we found waiting all alone in the cinema lobby. He looked like he could do with some sidekicks. 

Gig photos coming soon!

À Bientôt ! 

x

Cité des Sciences

I've had such a lovely but such a non-stop weekend! This post is a round up of random photos I managed to take on my phone at the Cite des Sciences et l'Industrie.  I know, I know, I'll take my camera out one day!

I went with my tandem partner (conversation exchange, nothing to do with bikes!), a friend who is at uni in Versailles & his friend at uni in St. Cloud. It's a science museum with loads of hands-on exhibitions (mainly aimed at children!) but less serious than Arts et Metiers which is apparently more traditional!

All the permanent exhibitions are free once you've paid your €6.00 student entry fee, but you have to pay a bit extra to go into the cinema, The Planetarium or the temporary exhibitions. We checked out the indoor greenhouse, the mathematics section, the humans & genes section & the sounds & music section.

'Sounds' was definitely the best section, with a whispering wall, fun videos for kids, explaining how things like the telephone was invented, and machines for warping sounds/inventing your own instrument. You can also have a voice recognition conversation with the rather sassy Mona Lisa.

If you go then take a friend, take a sense of humour & take a curious spirit.

I definitely learned some exciting things!

Nearest metro is Porte de la Villette.

Get yourselves along there!

À Bientôt !

x

Breakfast in America

On a cold & rainy day, nothing could have been more welcome than the offer of a catch-up over brunch with a friend from my university in England. Both myself & my friend had stumbled across 'Breakfast in America' on our online search for places to try, and both had been a little unsure as to whether the kitch-ness, blatant & unashamed American vibe & cheap and cheerful menu would make for an acceptable suggestion. It might not be embracing fine French culture or 'haute-cuisine' but I, for one, and am glad we went.

There are two branches, one in the Latin Quarter & one in Le Marais, just a stone's throw away from St. Paul Metro. We plumped for Le Marais, for its old-world charm & more pragmatically - the proximity to my friend's apartment! 

Just look at the buildings! If you're ever stuck for an idea of what to do in Paris - I promise you you'll have an adventure wandering aimlessly here. They have such beautiful shops here too. I had a little walk up the street whilst I was waiting & there were about 4 shops I already wanted to visit. Especially, too, that little red bistro on the corner. There were Christmas lights strung up inside & out round the front. I love the French & their resilience when it comes to cold weather - nothing will stop them from sitting round heaters on the street to people-watch whilst they sip their espressos, even Jack Frost nipping at their toes...

 

The diner itself is as kitch as you would hope it would be, with a brash red sign & this colourful hand-drawn chalk menu advertising all-day breakfast (my kinda place). We called out the usual "Bonjour !" before the waitress assured us that she was a New-Yorker, & please, we could speak English! On the menu: eggs any way you want, bacon, maple syrup, milkshakes & French toast.  

I settled for 2x2x2 (two pancakes, 2 pieces of bacon, & 2 eggs - scrambled, yum!) My friend plumped for pain perdu. This is "Breakfast in America" so the potion sizes are really generous. Another (American) friend seemed to think that the lunch options aren't amazing, & I would agree that the food is nice for the price you pay (under €10.00) but not incredible. Once again, the photos are from my phone - sorry!

I'm a sucker for loyalty cards - & seeing as we were given one on the way out, I guess I'll be making a return visit! I hope you had a lovely day too!

À Bientôt !

x

It's beginning to feel too much like Christmas!

Yesterday, my best decision of the day was to walk home from university instead of taking the metro during rush hour. It's pretty much a straight line from Malesherbes to home, flanked by shop windows one after the other, winking at me with Christmas lights newly strung up and inviting festive displays. It made for a nicer journey home, but does anyone else think it's still too soon to be getting into the Christmas spirit?

Christmas market on the Champs-Elysees

Walk home from Malesherbes

Paris Wheel outside the Tuileries Gardens.

Be prepared to fork out - I checked for you guys & it's €10.00 a ticket.

I'll definitely be headed to the market soon, so I'll let you know if it's worth a visit. 

Sorry for the photo quality recently - they're just taken on my iPhone but I will try & take my camera out more often!

À Bientôt !

x

Julien Doré

On Saturday, it was time to hit up the Paris music scene again, and this time things got slightly cooler than the (highly enjoyable) pop parade delivered by Mr. Olly Murs. Julien Dore was playing a free concert at a Fnac store, and although I might not have been a big fan at the beginning of the concert, by the end I certainly was. Truth be told, I'd heard one song of his - a cover, and I was listening to it because it featured Coeur de Pirate, whose music I was actually after. So think of him as an undiscovered treasure - one I found yesterday and am now sharing with you!

 Waiting in line!

The long queues were worth the wait, we were right near the front, which lead to us being spotted by a presenter that my friend knew from the "Non Stop People" channel. I blurted out that my French was a bit rubbish, so the cameras were turned on my French speaking friend whilst I smiled uncertainly into the camera. We were both very excited to make our French t.v. debut - but I haven't managed to track us down online yet so who knows if we'll get our 5 minutes of fame!

The concert consisted of Julien Dore and some of his friends who had collaborated on his new album LØVE playing some songs, a cover and then an acoustic number on a ukelele in the middle of the floor. Afterwards, he hurried through some autographs and we managed to get a quick photo.

Check him out on Youtube - and I'm told his new album has been even more popular than his old stuff. I certainly loved it & managed to tell him so! I can't help but laugh that my autograph was made out to 'Anna'. Think I'm just gonna have to embrace it...

À Bientôt !

x

Paris from my Phone

À Bientôt ! 

x

Holy Guacamole!

Tonight, I went out to for the best Mexican food of my life! The ambiance, the open kitchen where you could watch your fresh tortillas being rolled and the friendly patter from the chef only served to make my quesadilla taste even scrummier, and it was pretty good to start with.

The Mexican adventure was a suggestion from an American friend, who knows her Southern food, being from Florida. In celebration of having finished a particularly nasty test you may have heard me whinging about, we looked up recommendations on an amazing app called "Le Fooding". Choose your cuisine, read the reviews & Bob's your uncle. Apparently there are only a handful of Mexican restaurants in Paris, and the owners at El Nopal gave a pretty fair summary of them, telling us which were amigos in the Mex food industry and which were places best avoided!

When we arrived the shutters were down, it was drizzling & I thought it was the premature end to a pretty short-lived evening. However, the owner heard us waiting & opened up half an hour early, let us inside & took our orders. I got a quesadilla filled with smoky chicken, guacamole, chorizo, salsa, melty cheese & other goodness, and saw it cooked before my eyes by Jose, head chef. Manu entertained us with friendly chat & gave us advice on where to go in Paris for a fun time. 

The other girls got beef 'burrones', which seemed to be fresh tortillas wrapped around rice with other scrummy fillings. With a can of pop, some nachos with guacamole and dipping sauce to share and my main, my meal came to below €10.00. Not half bad for Paris! The atmosphere is so friendly, they play great music & speak French, Spanish & English. The guys originate from Mexico, so you feel like they know their stuff. Regulars popped in to pick up hot food to take away, & a Texan swung by saying that their buddy over in America had told him he just had to check it out.

I left with a stomach full of good food & a big smile on my face. Please go & try it if you get the chance! It is tiny, so although you're welcome to stand, eat, and chat in front of the counter, be aware that there are no tables to mull over your food in private. It has more of the flavour of a one-in-a-million pop-up stand than a polished Parisian restaurant, but I guess that's why I love it.

Hasta Luego 

(À Bientôt !)

x

Yousuf Karsh

On this chilly, non-descript evening where I'd been cooped up too long in my room (to the point where I was lumbering around, bleary-eyed and questioning the meaning of my existence after having read 3 Samuel Beckett plays in as many days), I decided that enough was enough and ventured out for a spot of culture.

Too...much...existentialism....

I'd been wanting to go to the "Icones du XXe Siecle" exhibition at the Mona Bismarck Center (featuring photography by Yousuf Karsh) for ages, and the perfect opportunity arose in the form of the international students' event. Entry was free and we were promised a cocktail on the house. Even with a test looming the next day, I couldn't resist!

The Eiffel Tower doing its thing on the way there! Hooray for the light show :)

On arriving at the gallery we were treated like V.I.Ps, ushered inside and invited to begin our own private tour of the gallery. Instead of taking a programme (like everybody else!) & reading the histories of each model as we went along, my friend and I guessed at who the famous faces were.

It was fun to see how many we could recognise and put some famous names to faces - I had no idea what Andy Warhol looked like before! Bill Clinton's real name is William? ...Oh! 

This turned out to be a much more fun decision, leading to a lot of giggling over botched biographies and crazy stories of where we'd come across each name. 

Definitely a bear rowing a man in a boat....(not an old man with a beard)!

Next we headed upstairs for a free glass of wine, nibbles, live music and a dance show. My friend took more photos upstairs so I'll pop them up on the blog when she puts them online.

 

We couldn't stay long for the entertainment, but a big round of applause for a completely free event run by students at The American University in Paris! It seems like the Mona Bismarck Center runs this as an annual occasion, so by sure to check the events calendar here next time you're in Paris! Nearest metro is Alma Marceau.

I hope this inspired you to make the most of a boring evening! Carpe Diem!

À Bientôt !

x