xkcd

xkcd.com sometimes has some really interesting comics...

wasteland

far away

makes me kind of... well.. yeah.....

macaron tour part 3

Pierre Hermé
OMG those were THE BEST macarons ever! EVER! yeah, bold, capitalized AND italicized. That good. This Pierre Hermé store might have been one of their smaller magasins because it didn't seem like they had that many flavors, but their macarons were so soft and so light and so amazing.

So after school today I decided to spend the afternoon in Paris under the advice of my cousin who insisted "get sick of Paris while I still can". After some failed (well, perhaps not failed) attempt at shopping where I left empty handed, I decided to continue on my macaron tour of Paris. A friend of mine, who doesn't seem to appreciate macarons as much as I do, insists that I should stray from this macaron tour and do a more general patisserie tour. Honestly, I have no complaints with that. Tartelette aux framboise (raspberry mini tarts) are also a patisserie favorite of mines. Along with tartelette aux pommes and framboisiers. Deeelish! But this post isn't about other pastries.

So into Pierre Hermé I go. And what a cute little chic shop it was! Their entire display case was filled with pastries of all kinds but I just ran off with four macarons (of 1.60 euros each.. eek). Two rose flavored macarons, one cassis (currants) and one jasmin tea. The jasmin one was pretty good, doesn't quite top the tea one from Dalloyao though. The cassis had actual fruit pieces in it so that was quite a treat. And the rose ones... man... to...die...for.... well.. maybe not literally, but it seriously tasted like heaven in your mouth.


To top off this trip to Paris, a beautiful day at my favorite park of Paris, le Jardin du Luxembourg. :) Ah yes, spring in France...

And, I would love to have any one of those apartments overlooking the park. *sigh* one day...

edit: In the movie, Love Me If You Dare, little Sophie askes Julien what he wants to be when he grows up and he says a tyrant. She answers saying that she wants to be a cream puff. I would rather be a macaron. A rose flavored Pierre Hermé macaron. ^_~

macaron tour part 2

sadaharu aoki is definitely not as good as dalloyao or laduree.

green tea, for once you've let me down...

On birds and nature

There’s a type of bird outside in my river that disappears under the water for perhaps one, two, five minutes at a time and appears somewhere else. Occasionally when I see this bird dive down, I’ll stop from my walk to see where it’ll pop up later. It never pops up where I think it will, but eventually it does and I continue on my way.

Sometimes I feel like that bird.

Time to mend those neglected and broken fences.

Have I ever....

So in light of all the “Have You Ever…?” surveys that have been surfacing on blogs and on Facebook, I decided to make a “Have I Ever…?” survey of my own. However, this one will be rather different. Instead of a checklist of random things, this one will be of all the things I should and want to do in France/Europe before I leave. If anyone has any additions to my list, do tell! I’m sure that there’ll be plenty that I’ve missed and should do or see.
- (x) the Louvre
- (x) Notre Dame
- (x) Sainte Chapelle
- (x) La Sorbonne
- (x) Shakespeare and Co
- (x) Le Pantheon
- (x) Le Jardin des Plantes: I'm sure this will look better once there's actually blooming plants and not mounds of dirt all around
- (x) Le Palais du Luxembourg
- (x) Le Centre Georges Pompidou
- La place des Vosges
- Le musée Picaso
- (x) La Bastille
- (x) Le Jardin des Tuileries
- Le Palais-Royal
- (x) La place de la Concorde
- (x) L’avenue des Champs-Élysées
- Le Grand et le Petit Palais
- (x) L’Arc de Triumph
- La place Vendôme
- L’Opéra
- (x) La tour Eiffel
- (x) Le Champs de Mars
- L’Assemblée Nationale
- Les Invalides
- (x) Le musée Rodin
- (x) Le musée d’Orsay
- (x) Le Sacré-Coeur
- La Défense
- (x) Les marches aux puces
- (x) Statue de la Liberté
- (x) Liberty’s Flame (Diana Remembered)
- Parc Monceau
- (x) Cimetière du Père Lachaise: wow... and so easy to get lost here...
- Bibliothèque Nationale
- Chinatown/Belleville
- (x) Macaron tour
- Salsa dance encore
- (x) Mont St-Michel
- (x) Strasbourg Cathedral
- (x) Normandy War Memorials
- Champagne tasting
- (x) Wine tasting
- (x) Amiens Cathedral
- Learn to cook French dishes
- Listen to Notre-Dame’s bells on Sunday
- (x) Rent a Vélib in Paris
- (x) Buy food from the open air markets
- Château hopping: [x] Versailles, [x] Chenonceau, [x] Chantilly, [x] Compiegne, [x] Caen, [x] Vincennes, Pierrefonds/Compiegne (where WWI and WWII Armistice treaties were signed), [x] Chambord, Fontainebleau (royal hunting grounds for French kings), [x] Cheverny, [x] Amboise,
- (x) Loire valley
- Visit south of France, beaches
- Enjoy cheese/bread/wine/food
- Fontenay Abbey
- See lavender fields
- Corsica
-

wow.. that got long fast!

spring in france

After the rough winter earlier, I can enthusiastically say that I am glad it's spring. No, not glad, ecstatic. And what better way to enjoy spring than to visit the best place in Paris: le Jardin du Luxembourg! Children sailing boats, people lounging on chairs, people lounging on the grass, people everywhere! It's amazing how the jardins transform from one season to another.

18 February
18 March
what a difference a month makes!

j'adore le printemps à paris! ♥

Winter Break

Two weeks off and what do I do? Well travel, bien sur! Perhaps I should have gone to more places while I was off, but I don't think I did too bad with Normandy and Amsterdam. :) And for those curious, no smoking or special brownie eating for me.

After all those consecutive weeks of dancing back in California, I am sad to say that I've only danced here twice. TWICE. Oy, pathetic! I've almost forgotten how fun dancing was too! Fortunately however there was a tango demonstration and an intro to tango class in Amiens while on vacation. And so I danced again! Not as good as these two, but dang, eventually I'll get there...


Along with dancing, my wonderful and relaxed Winter Break (not to be confused with my Christmas Break) included lots of beach time. In northern France, the water will never be warm enough to swim in, however, just being able to see something bigger than a river made my day.

On commence avec Granville... just a nice coastal village which turns out to have held one of the biggest Carnivale festivals of France.

Ah such a lovely sight the sea makes!

german bunkers along the cliffside
and of course, a beautiful sunsetand bulots or sea snails :)

Mont St. Michel

it was built on a rock in the middle of the bay, but as the abbey and the village grew bigger and bigger it started expanding around the rock, ultimately incorporating the rock into the structure

i was so happy when the sun showed up to join us at the second most visited place in france

the abbey in its full glory

Normandy

the history

the beachand the fallenCaen

le chateau de caen

the memorial of caen

"Pain broke me, Brotherhood raised me up.."..of my wound sprang a river of Liberty"

Amsterdam!

anne frank's house

tulips!

dutch houses

and dutch canals

et voila, mon vacance :)