Bradon and Mikaela do Paris and it's Fun and Stuff!

Everything you need to know about Bradon and I's trip is the food, let's be real. SO! Feast your eyes on these photos! 

A "cosmo" that was not really a cosmo, and a strawberry mojito at Shwartz's.

Bradon's 'Parisian' Burger -- rare meat, anyone?

My "hot and spicy" burger. Hardly spicy at all. French people are wimps when it comes to spicy food I have concluded.

Close up! 

Bastille! Around here I made Bradon go to the Merce and the Muse coffee shop with me that my friend Laurence had shown me earlier in April. So good. No photos cause we downed that banana tart like nobody's business!

Pompidou! We went in (for free!) and had some fun discussing stuff very smart-like.

Oh baby, oh baby... time for the big spender dessert night.

Need I say more? Yes. Just so you can be more jealous, it's mouse on top of a little bit of a dense dark chocolate cake crust and there are caramelized hazelnuts distributed throughout. I believe it was called... something 'Noire' haha!

The cheapest bottle of something that said the word, Champagne. Was not cheap!

Brunch the next day at Le Loir dans la Theiere (The Doormouse in the Teapot).

We got the fixed price brunch which was great cause it was a lot of food, but it was a little boring and we wish we had gotten something a little more fancy.

My eggs :)

Bradon's eggs :( A little too wet for his liking

Pletzel!

Remember this guy at the Sacre Coeur?

Yea.

It got more epic the longer you watched.

Evidence.

Evidence!

Walking around the backstreets of the Butte Montmartre: so lovely.

Parc Andre Citroen.

Neato.

THE BALLOON! FINALLY!

So excited.

Oh dear god.

Cool neighborhood... government building?

Oh hey best panoramic ever. And the wait was... what... ten minutes? And we were up there with four other people only. It was a beautiful day! Who says the climb up the Eiffel tower is the necessary trip? I sure don't. Only one of three lifts to the top of the tower are currently working (renovations... damn you, renos!) so this is my compromise. 3.5 hours waiting in line? No thank you.

Patisserie Viennois! Again! Can't get enough of this place. This was Bradon and I's "lunch". SO GOOD. So fat.

Om nom Grande Chocolat Chaude Viennois Maison = heaven.

Truffle Cake... legitimately solid truffle chocolate, it's not pastry!

Linzer torte, Raspberry. Rockin' the German pastry!

Can't remember the whole name of this one, but it was Amande Citron Canelle torte I think so Almond, Lemon and Cinnamon = tasted like Christmas and something else familiar. Like... comfort cookies.

Champs Elysees the day after the epic French election! Prepping for May 8th, Liberty day.

Louis Vuitton is epic here... That's the first one ever, I believe! If I remember correctly from my museum exploration.

Arc Du Triomphe preparations for the next day's laying of Flowers by... I think, the brand new president! The flag blowing in the arch was quite the site to see. 

After dropping Bradon off at the bus station (sad sad sad) I mosied on home and saw the biggest moon in the history of moons! There is a construction arm to give you an idea of size. I did a quadruple take before concluding I needed a photo to prove it.

And that was our visit in photos. We wandered a lot, checked out all sorts of stuff here and there. I shared Shakespeare and Co and we saw a copy of the first edition of Huckleberry Finn for 1200 euro! So cool! 

We also went to the Musee de L'erotisme which was fun in itself, because of what it was, but surprisingly underwhelming. As many bloggers I've read have said, the interesting floor is the history of the brothels, but it sure is a lot of reading. The rest is just a ton of different cultures old penis statues. Which is cool, seeing how other cultures embraced sexual stuff, but it did get to be a little repetitive and in order to appreciate it, you have to be in the mood for reading. It felt a little seedy the whole time, which was kind of awesome, especially on the floor with 70's porn playing. Bradon pointed out that it's really awesome that you can sit down and watch this pornography beside a total stranger and it's totally ok. It's fascinating! It's not like everyone is just going to start getting freaky, it's a museum! It was a really cool way of embracing a sexual culture as what it is, and giving it credit for being totally normal -- society needs to chill a little on the judgement. I definitely had mine own judgements of people who stuck around watching the porn at first, but... why else is it there? Really? I like that. Anyways, that was my two cents.

Anyways, I'll let you off easy this time with just those photos to feast your eyes upon. Then, Emily came to town. Oh golly gee... the times we have had already!

A bientot! <3

Le Marais and Dessert dessert dessert

Yesterday was International Women's Day, and oh boy did I enjoy it. First things first, I made a delectable lunch of Camembert and Ham stuffed chicken breast (breast! not escalopes!) with a prune and onion balsamic chutney deliciousness on top. Heaven!

Happy happy joy joy! I am eating far too well for a 'starving artist'

This plate is far too huge.

So, after that delicious start today I moseyed on over to the Marais area to meet up with a friend for the FREE gelato being offered at Pozzetto. I got there super early (2 hours early...) so I wandered and wandered and came upon a dream come true. It may be common knowledge to many that the Marais is STACKED with vintage stores, but I was not aware of this fact till I walked right into one. The sign read, "1 Euro Bins" -- I bolted. 

After and hour and a half forage I came out with my grand prize -- a metallic art nouveau pullover of easter-egg colors. 

I don't think I could be more stoked on this sweater. It also smells like it's been recently washed -- win.

(You will notice that any photo I take in my apartment will probably be in my 'kitchen' where the natural light is. So, when you see my shower in the photo as well -- that gives you an idea of the size of my apartment.) So, the sweater put me back a whopping 10 Euro (pffffft) whereas my other purchases (below) came to a total of 2. 

This scarf is about the size of me, silky, and plaid & paisley. Joy!

Polyester goodness, in clear need of an iron. But... iridescent turquoise/violet shoulder-padded, waist-cinched glamour? Mm.

I seriously held back at this excursion. I had a good ten other items I considered, but then I wouldn't have any more budget left for the day. So I held back. When I realised the time I booked it back to the Metro where I was meeting Kendra. I got us lost on our way to the gelato, but we righted ourselves thanks to Kendra's keen abilities with FreeWiFi in public parks. 

The place was dead. I mean, no one else was there. It was 5 pm, all the schools had just gotten out, it was beautiful out, it was a holiday, it was FREE, it was famous gelato -- WHAT WAS GOING ON!? I immediately was worried it wasn't actually free, but when we went in the lady happily scooped us up some fresh rose gelato on two adorable tall and skinny waffle cones and sent us on our way with a friendly, "au revoir!" So confused. Not complaining. I would have loved to have documented this via photograph, but alas, I was so engrossed in the absolutely breathtaking flavor of this gelato I was unable to tear myself away from it until completion. 

Kendra and I then set off to find the art store. Now, my fault here, but we didn't find it. I had google maps'd it and taken a picture of the map on my phone to view. We were standing in front of what google maps said was the store, and there was no store. Classic google maps + Mikaela incident. We decided to skip out for the day on the art store, and instead head on down to Pigalle for dins.

My friend and mentor Melanie had suggested a dive called La Fourmi for cheap and delicious eats. We walked in, picked our own table (gasp!) and ordered a bottle of wine for less than both our little glasses had been the night before. 

I Probably should have not cut off Kendra's head in this photo... SORRY!

Now, the night before we'd seen a bunch of people with Croque Madames and we wanted them. So, comparing the size of the plate at last night's cafe with the incredibly reduced price at this one, I was expecting something roughly the size of a gluten-free grilled cheese. Non. This plate was EPIC.

The plate is like... the size of my torso. The Madame is the size of my forearm. Ah.

Kendra and I didn't talk for like half and hour. We just ate, and sighed, and occasionally mentioned god. It was a beautiful experience. Then, we both got dessert too. I got the tiramisu, and Kendra got something that translates to white cheese. We both polished ours off in like five minutes. 

There was so much delicious cocoa powder on this, I inhaled over my spoon and choked on cocoa. 

So, the bill for this meal came to less than half of the night before and we got... probably just as much food, but probably double the calories. It was amazing. Thank you, Melanie. 

Kendra wanted to go check our the Sacre Coeur and Pigalle at night time, which I know I wouldn't have had the guts to do alone so I gladly agreed. We took the tram up for free with our transit passes (so worth it, oh man) and snapped away with our cameras for a good 15-20 minutes. Kendra is a photographer. I am not. My photos all ended up blurry, save a couple good ones of the basilica. 

So gorgeous all lit up at night.

There was glass EVERYWHERE, and people were just chucking bottles like nobody's business. Party central, up here!

After that adventure, we walked around Pigalle, went into the Sexodrome store for like... an hour. We had our own set of adventures there, including a hilarious exchange with the stripper/prostitute there who, "Oh! English! ... I speaks english!" ... non. She did not. But she was very good at making you feel like you were communicating something correctly. We almost got chocolate crepes and pastries while walking around, but I know my belly was exploding, so we didn't consider those for long. After, we metro'd to our separate homes and I listened to my crazy neighbours party all night until I passed right out into a food coma. 

This morning I woke up and decided I needed to bake something. I made a Martha Stewart recipe for double chocolate brownies with a bajillion alterations. First off, I did make it gluten-free because... well... that's how I know how to bake now! Also, I used prunes all mashed up as a fat substitute (the recipe called for prune puree... no luck). Also, no cocoa powder, so I just bumped up the pure chocolate amounts (can't hurt for gluten-free stuff to have more moisture, non?). It's pretty damn good, not gonna lie. Pictures!!!

Mixing mixing mixing... I used corn starch flour, super basic. 

Oh hello, mini toaster oven. 

Please please please fit!

TA DA! 

45 minutes later... Voila!

Oooo food-blogger-esque close-up shot!

Right now I'm waiting for that brownie to cool so I can eat half the pan and go walk around for five hours! So concludes my last 24 hours! Good food, lot's of dessert, and lovely company! Au revoir till... probably tomorrow. Bisous!