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

Dali, Sacre Coeur, food... always food.

Today I went to the Espace Dali in the Musee de Montmartre. The exhibit was a collection of works by Dali dedicated to his best bud/secretary Enrique Sabater. Pretty awesome exhibit. I think the best way to understand how awesome it was is to see it ... so... PICTURES!

I don't know if you can tell from the little photos of these but a LOT of his paintings and stuff in this exhibit were done on the back of something cardboard. The ink drawing it looks kinda like there is reflection in the glass or something, but thats the back of the cardboard with some embossment on it.

Flipped right out over both of these guys. The clock... well anyone who knows dali knows about the clocks so... but the sculpture is based off Alice in Wonderland. If you know me at all, you have probably heard me at least mention my obsession with Louis Carroll. So, to have two of my idols come together into one beautiful sculpture -- epic.

Clocks, crutches, drawers, the dali elephant -- so many Dali things! Gasps abound!

There were loads and loads and loads of dedications in books to Sabater. His signature took on all sorts of forms, sometimes he just drew something epic. Always more than just a signature. AMAZING!

Piano legs! Eggs, ants, clocks, severed ladies -- DALI THINGS! AH!

This giant thing was super cool. I don't quite remember the story behind it, but it was a reproduction of some sort of cathedral that got moved to this museum (which is a basement, by the way.) Watch the video!

Christ St. John of the Cross! STOKED! I did a reproduction of the famous painting of this symbol in an art class -- where I fell in love with Dali. The little contraption over here is honestly pretty hard to explain. There was a little blurb underneath it. It's a contraption to dunk a sugar cube into a shot glass but it's got all sort of other stuff going on. It's hilarious. 

More Alice! And this famous sculpture. The baguette was once-upon-a-time a real one, but people kept stealing it (when it was first created).

Snails and clocks and OF COURSE that moustache. Me and Dali are bff's.

The lips sofa that got him some serious media cred. The little card on it says not to sit on it Seriously... people sat of the couch that was on a meter high platform with no ledge for your feet? Common sense!

More cool sculptures. Giraffe neck + drawer + crutch. Juxtaposition too!

OMG AAAAAAH! Freaked right on out. Sexy lobster phone being all aphrodisiac-y by your mouth. 

One of my favorite things there. He made this really elaborate series' of models and drawings and stuff of the design ideas he had for the home he was going to make his friend. That whale is a toilet, the eyeball a sink, that AMAZING book case, the cutlery... there was also a design of a bidet which was a clam shell.

I wish this photo was better. This was one of my favorite parts of the exhibit. There were all these photos involving his moustache and then the interview questions along with them. This questions was one of my favorites. I hope you can make out the picture! Below is the question a little clearer. 

 

Ants all over the stairs leading out. Aw...

ICE CREAM! Tiramisu ice cream actually. I breathed in over it and choked on the cocoa, as I seem to do a lot with tiramisu-related desserts.

Coolest musician ever. I gave him 2 whole euro, which is a lot for a poor girl in Paris. Pus, everyone else was giving like... 20 cents.

The instrument is called a hang I think, that's what the musician told me at least (I think... conflicting languages have very confusing 'conversations') Listen below to what it sounded like!

I will never tire of panoramic views.

I don't know if this guy was a busker or not but he was juggling like a mad man on this little platform, and it looked super cool with the backdrop of the basilica. 

This guy most certainly WAS a busker. He was not good. He was very nervous, and this is moments before he burnt himself with his heavily tangled fire poi. I think maybe he was trying it out for the first time. 

Ahhhh views...

Ok, so we got some LEGIT New York cheese cake here. SEE? NO crust! Why can't any restaurants in Canada get this right? Wonderful. I meant to photograph my epic 15 euro hamburger as well, but I was too busy eating it. I tried to do it with a knife and fork like the Parisians.... tooooo much work. Especially when the burger is half a foot high. Notably, the ground beef was a lot better than a lot of burgers I've had. Which is ironic, cause I'm from Alberta. It was more the ground consistency of beef tartar, not soooo ground up it was basically mush like a lot of ground beef I've seen. Maybe that's because I would never have bought a 20 dollar hamburger in Canada... holy crap that hamburger was expensive! It came with fries!!!

The tower montparnasse from my window. I finally caught it doing it's rainbow-brite light show on film tonight! Why does this happen? People already hate this tower enough as it is, and they added a cheesy technicolor light show! Well... I like it! This balloon is my favorite thing ever. I will keep posting pictures of it. Notice how there is basically a BUS hanging from it? Can you see that? Take my word for it.

Paper memories of the day! Including my 'quittance', which is basically my receipt for paying rent. I forgot to ask for one before, so it's a good thing my landlord is a wonderful human being and gave me one now. I paid in cash... it would be hard to prove that payment happened without this little guy!

Fun little addition -- I bought these shoes. They were 6 euro at Tati -- super discount store with crappy stuff for really cheap. They were supposed to be like 20 euro I think but then she had to do a price check since mine didn't have a tag and they came back with that price. I did not argue. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't know how to say it in French! WOO!

Well, that's my day in photographs! Tomorrow I think Kendra and I are heading to the George Pompidou centre -- excited! There is a Matisse exhibition there right now. I love that this stuff is EVERYWHERE in this city! Also, that it's super cheap for me because I'm young and live here. WEE!