Parisian Plans

With a momentous trip like this, of course we had to make our days chock-full of Parisian goodies! With only really 5 days to see the city, each day was bound to be busy. Just in case anyone is curious or checking, here's our itinerary for our trip! 


Day 1 – Sunday, Sept. 11^th
- Arrive in Paris - Settle into apartment
- Eat dinner ~6-7 PM- Sunset at 8:15!!

- Explore neighborhood
- Eiffel Tower at nighttime – sparkling lights for 5 min every hour on the hour

Day 2 – Monday, Sept. 12^th
- Eiffel Tower (daily 9:30-11:45 PM)
- Lunch
- Bateaux Parisian River Cruise           
- Louvre (pictures) à Jardin des Tuileries à
            Laduree  à Arc de Triomphe (daily 10 AM – 11 PM)
- Dinner

Day 3 – Tuesday, Sept. 13^th
- Hotel de Ville
- Sainte Chapelle (daily 9:30 AM – 6 PM)
- Towers of Notre Dame (daily 10 AM – 6:30 PM)
- Lunch
- Musee d’Orsay (Tues- Sun 9:30 – 5:30 PM)
- Musee de l’Orangerie
- Grand Palais

- Dinner

Day 4 – Wednesday, Sept. 14^th
- Opera Garnier Tour @11:30
- Lunch
- Musee Grevin (M-F 10 AM - 6:30 PM)
- O Chateau Wine Tasting @3 PM
- Musee de Louvre (Daily 9 AM – 6 PM except Tuesdays)
- Basilique Sacre Couer and Place du Tertre
- Dinner

Day 5 – Thursday, Sept. 15^th
Versailles (daily 9 AM – 6:30 PM except Mondays)

Day 6 – Friday, Sept. 16^th
- Galeries Lafayette, Au Printemp, etc
- Pantheon (daily 10 AM – 6:30 PM)
- Jardin du Luxembourg
- Montparnasse Tower (daily 9:30 AM - 11:30 PM)
- lovely last dinner! And lovely last club night?

Day 7 – Saturday, Sept. 17^th
- Au Revoir, Paris!

Paris Countdown - T- 6 days!

After much anticipation, we are in the final week! Excited is such a bland word... the fires of my anticipation are BLAZING! I'm excited to see the Eiffel Tower and walk along the Seine, take in all the gorgeous architecture and (maybe) hot French people (guys and girls, I won't discriminate!). However, I'm most excited for the food... but the fact that I don't know any French makes it a little difficult. I'd rather know if I'm ordering calf brain or a steak. So... time to bone up on French foodie vocabulary!

Bone up just sounds so wrong.

another big fan of french cooking, remy from ratatouille! love this movie.

Some good links!

- http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/a/menu.htm - this teaches you how to read a French menu and recognize some common French dishes (and some not so common ones). I already know I'll be asking for le menu, sil vous plait! And une carafe d'eau.

- http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/a/food.htm - I like this because it really familiarizes you with all the types of fruit, meat, nuts whatever you might see on a menu. Also, the links have sound! So you know you're saying it sorta, almost, totally not like a native.

- http://www.davidlebovitz.com/paris/ - this is a blog written by a pastry chef from the US, who now lives in Paris. Who better than a chef to know about food in Paris?! I'm pretty sure a lot of the restaurants mentioned may be out of our price range but I loved reading about them and also spent a lot of time clicking around the links at the bottom, which are on a variety of useful topics in regards to Paris, food and otherwise. Dining Tips in Paris was a very practical guide of how to deal with dining in Paris, which I have to admit does have me a bit intimidated.

In addition to normal food, I'm really anticipating the French patisseries! Hopefully I'll come back with a favorite one. French pastries and chocolates, can't really go wrong there!

Excuse your French… literally.

Where’s all my soul sisters? Let me hear you flow sisters… Wow, it has been quite some time since we’ve all gone out to the party scene together. There is no doubt that you’ll be checking out Paris entertaining nightlife (and maybe some hot guys like the ones pictured in previous post) as part of the extensive 6/7-day itinerary.

Without further ado, let’s introduce the French phrase of the day lol:

Formal: Voulez-vous coucher avec moi (ce soir)?

Informal: "Tu veux coucher avec moi (ce soir)?" or "On couche ensemble (ce soir)?"

Translates to: "Do you want to sleep with me (tonight)?"

Seeing that all of you ladies are already taken, in response one would say:

1) non merci - no thank you

2) non et non! - absolutely not!

3) je crois que non - I don't think so

I remember watching the MTV VMA’s that year. Counting back I was in 8th grade then! The song doesn’t seem to be that old, but it is from ten years ago. Isn’t it funny how our tastes in TV shows change with time? I haven’t seen a single VMA since after high school.

As for the trip I’ve got an update: There is a good deal of hope that I might still be able to make it as long as my work visa gets approved! The immigration service does not start accepting applications until after April 1 and the process takes 3-6 months. So stay tuned with news in July-Aug. I’m also hoping that flight prices don’t go skyrocketing high. Please, please cross your fingers for me, thanks!

French Movie: Amélie

Do you know how much I love this movie? Cuz I really, really, love this movie. In fact,  it is the only movie that I have ever bought in DVD form - which I think is pretty impressive in this age of pirated movies galore, or if you're more into following the rules, renting them from a day from Redbox or getting it from Netflix. I just needed to have that DVD boxset! It is THAT good.

Also, it's set in Paris, in the Montmartre area! We could even have lunch/dinner at the diner where she works, which actually existed before the movie! Although I've heard it's gotten popular and expensive since then.

french movie poster

French Food: Macarons

Hey guys, in anticipation of our trip I thought it might be nice to introduce some French foods that we might encounter! So I'll be putting up some features on certain French foods for your viewing pleasure. For our inaugural article our topic will be lovely 

macarons! 

a column of prettily presented macarons

Sympathique

Time to learn some French words....
and what better way than through music specially for visual learners like me :)
and throw in some Japanese and Sign language, too!



I actually heard this song in one of Michelle Phan's videos.

Paris, Here We Come!!!

Okay, so maybe this is a little preemptive, considering our trip doesn't take place til September. But geez, that's only like half a year away! And I'm so excited! This is Paris dammit! City of Light, La Ville-Lumière, city of love and lovers! Site of the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Cathedral Notre Dame, the Louvre Museum, and countless other famous monuments. Add to that the sheer enjoyment of wandering through side-streets, taking a break at the quintessential sidewalk cafe, and watching all the hot young Parisians stroll by. Ahhhh....

hot guys on paris roof