Degas and Chocolate

Yesterday would probably rank as one of the most fulfilling days of my existence. I woke up at noon, had french toast (made with french bread), blew up my hair straightener (Flames! That experience did not contribute to the awesome day, but it did happen. First use!) and headed to the Musee D'orsay.
Now, some background history. In my old art class, my teacher Debra talked about this museum ALL THE TIME and since I have been anticipating the day I would be able to witness most of my favourite artists in the same place. The Louvre had it's own flavor of excitement -- there, I was thrilled to be in the presence of such history. In the D'orsay, of course the history was there too, but the D'orsay art is where my passion lies. Impressionists give me goosebumps. I can never get over how fearless the brush strokes look. Like, "Yup, this orange table cloth definitely has a splash of blue right there." One day I will have that confidence!
So I walk in to the Museum (After paying 6.50 E... I should have lied and said I was a European citizen to get in for free... I was too excited to be sneaky.) and, I've seen a bajillion pictures of this thing, but AH! In-the-flesh experiences are continuing to blow me away. Of course, no photography in this museum, but I managed to sneak this guy from the stairs by the back.

This is taken with my crappy iPhone camera because I was trying to be inconspicuous. 

So, there, you see the sculpture-filled entrance wing. But, oh man oh man, so many side wings filled with paintings. Including, to my surprise, Bouguereau's The Birth Of Venus, which is one of my all-time favourite paintings by one of my all-time favourite painters. This was another one of those round-the-corner -and-then-BAM moments where I gasped and almost fell to the ground. I did a dramatic hand-to-throat gasp motion a la soap operas. It's HUGE too, by the way. If you aren't familiar with the painting, it's this one. 

My big anticipations, besides of course the Monets... and Manets.... and Renoirs... aaaaaahhhhhh... were the Degas'. I have a huge love for this dude. Some of the first (good) pastel pieces I ever did were reproductions of his work, and pastel now stands as my favourite medium, so, thanks, dude. His sculptures were there too, which I squealed over. The entire Impressionist floor blew my mind, not to mention the rest of the museum. I spent a good three hours at the D'orsay yesterday, I'm definitely going again a few more times. I now have a serious respect and love for Toulouse Lautrec too, when before I had never really seen much. I felt very art-y and knowledgeable at some points. Thank you Debra! I sighed so many times, my shoulders lowered a good few inches. Screw yoga, I've never been so relaxed in my life!

So after that beautiful experience I headed home to check in on facebook with an old friend from dance, Kendra, who is also staying in Paris (for school). We met up around 7:30 in St. Germain and went to Cafe de Flore. Kendra had been told she had to go to this place before leaving, so we shelled out the euros for that meal!

I was pleasantly surprised how nice they were to us when I was butchering the language and had my shellfish allergy and all that. The waiter definitely thought I had a thing for him because I smile and giggle a lot and I make a lot of eye contact -- all signs of flirtation in France. Dammit. But, that made him super nice. And I got some winks out of it. 

We both kind of panicked with the french menu, but the waiter offered to help us look through it and we ended up with some good stuff. I took pictures of my food. Oh man. What a feast.

This is the place mat. I was so stoked on this Cafe I took pictures of everything.

Immediately after our food arrived (which got there really fast I might add!)

Ok, so I thought Canadian restaurant portions were bonkers. It took me a good hour to eat this salad, without breaks. That ooey gooey goodness on top is the dressing, which I swear was probably just melted butter. The lettuce you see poking out, there was not a whole lot of that. It was mostly emmental. Which, I am not complaining about! I love cheese! But I was not prepared for how much cheese there was! There was like... 2 cups of cheese, chopped up into little bitty slices. SO GOOD! But my heart is aching from this meal today. The other half was ham, eggs and tomatoes. BEST tomatoes ever, holy crap. Anyways, I was VERY happy with this salad. Also, that wine was the cheapest on the menu (That is not saying it was cheap though, of course) and it was AMAZING.

Here's a close up of the madness. It doesn't even begin to show how much cheese is in this thing. Just picture that everything you can't see, is cheese. 

The most beautiful experience of my existence. I don't know what this thing was called, I just got it off the waiter's description (of course he suggested THE most expensive dessert... who cares.)

Dessert arrived and my reaction was similar to that I had to the Bouguereau painting. This thing is bigger than my face. There is like a litre of chocolate sauce in there, it is chocolate soup. There are these dainty little creampuffs with fresh vanilla bean gelato in them. The cream-puffsNesquik version. This chocolate sauce blew my mind. It definitely had like cream and goodness in it cause... oh boy. I was in heaven. I devoured that plate in like... an eighth of the time it took me to eat my salad. I couldn't finish all the chocolate sauce, despite my best effort, as I was exploding out of my high-waisted pants. Impressive. I did use the remaining chocolate sauce to draw Kendra a diagram of my apartment with my spoon, though. Class. 

We also had Cafe Cremes, which was slightly different than the one I had in Montmartre. This one was the traditional style, I think. The coffee in one little jug and hot milk in the other. In short, amazing. Best coffee of my life. You will see that I didn't take a picture till after I had finished it. 

The coffees in Paris come with little paper wrapped sugar cubes. This time, I stashed them in my purse. Score.

The coffee was supposed to be decaf but I was up all night revving with excitement anyways. I ended up spending two days worth of budget on this dinner, but it was well worth it. And the company wasn't so bad either ;)! Today Kendra and I are going to go grab some FREE gelato for National Women's Day (Paris knows how to appreciate a woman) and then grab some art supplies. I'm so stoked! Paris gets better every day!