Paris, France — Savorsome

I hadn’t planned to return to Paris this semester, since there were so many new places I wanted to see and it’s only been three years since my schools French trip, but I couldn’t pass up free housing and a cheap flight. We arrived on Friday, right around dinnertime, and took an uber to the apartment we were staying in. It was in the Chinatown of Paris, with little authentic food to try for dinner that night. But we finally fell upon the perfect place, tucked away in an alleyway; we found this adorable French restaurant. All three of us had amazing steak frites, with peppercorn sauce and some homemade potatoes. It was DELCIOUS! The sauce was the perfect mix of flavor with spice and creaminess.

That night we went to a few bars around the area, which had terrible music, but tons of French people having a good time. We had an early wake up Saturday morning to see everything. The day started by taking the metro to the Arc De Triomphe, we walked to the center and looked at it from underneath. We walked down the Champs de Elysees, looking in on all the shops and imagining we were buying it all. I did treat myself to my first real Long Champ bag, taking home my one Parisian treat. We then walked the ENTIRE Champs de Elysees down to the river Seine and stopped along the way to eat lots of crepes. I had a cheese and mushroom one for lunch that was just PERFECT. It had this delicious goat cheese in the center and the mushrooms were salty but were amazing combined. For dessert I had salted caramel, my favorite flavor.

We walked down the Seine, stopping at all of the different sites, including walking through the Garden, up to the Louvre. After a very long day, filled with crepes and cappuccinos, we took an even longer walk to the Eiffle Tower. It was beautiful to see it at night, with the entire city lit up. We had a delicious dinner around the Eiffle Tower, and headed back the apartment to pass out since we were all DELERIOUS.

at 8pm the tower begins to sparkle

Each morning the entire trip we stopped at this bar/café and had the best cappuccinos I’ve ever had. We would then walk down the block to this little French bakery where I ate my body weight in croissants of all flavors.

We slowed things down Sunday and took a riverboat tour to the Louvre. We got in for free with our student IDs and I got to see the Mona Lisa again. Emily and I split a huge bag of groceries we found at food market. We picked out an herb and peppercorn-coated goat cheese with a fresh baguette and prosciutto. We also had a Greek little salad and beers, along with an olive loaf that we ate in the first 5 minutes and to finish, adorable chocolate caramel cookies. We had a delicious picnic in the garden in front of the Louvre with a bunch of NYUParis kids. It was by far my favorite part of the trip. Everyone was playing soccer or football, drinking wine and eating amazing bites, with 70-degree weather in early March.

After a few hours we jumped back on the boat, and stopped along the river at the Musee d’Orsay, and the Notre Dame.It was 5pm at this point on a Sunday, so we walked into a service at the Notre Dame. It was hauntingly beautiful, with a full choir singing church hymns and a ridiculous amount of priests chanting prayers in French. I lit a candle for Poppop, thinking it fitting for his sprit to be in Paris once in his life.

We followed this spectacular experience with my favorite meal of the trip. We found this little restaurant overlooking a square behind the Notre Dame. It was warm enough to sit outside so we got two little tables and watched the people passing by. Unfortunately for Sabrina, she spent the weekend with both strep and tonsillitis, so her food consisted of anything that could be made into baby food. But Emily and I ordered a huge green salad with fried cheese on it. It was SO good. The goat cheese was salty, and very lightly battered, with a fresh perfectly dressed salad that was just what we needed after the carbs on carbs that the French seem to live by. I followed this up with a poached egg. This egg floated in a chorizo tomato soup that had so many amazing flavors. The soup tasted like long roasted heirloom tomatoes mixed with lots of basil and cilantro, along with the smoky chorizo, that added a salty quality. The egg was still runny and it was basically too delicious to eat. Sabrina also lucked out because they had saffron risotto with seared scallops that were the perfect caramelized brown tops. She couldn’t really taste any of it, but I tried a bit and it was also spectacular.

On our last day we headed back up near the Arc de Triomphe and walked down Victor Hugo Street, filled with more shops, one in particular, Celine, that I had to cover my eyes in envy. But we ended at a perfumery where Sabrina and Emily got beautiful French perfume. We then ventured to Moulin Rouge, which doesn’t have much character on its own anymore, but has a fun area around it. We walked the streets without much purpose, but enjoyed seeing a new area. We ended at a little sit-down creperie where we all had epic crepes. I had the mushroom, cheese and over easy egg one, since that is basically all of my favorite ingredients. Sabrina, and her baby food need, had the best of the day, with smoked salmon, cheese, spinach, fresh crème and lemon. Emily had a spicy sausage and cheese one, and Evan and his sweet tooth had nutella and banana. The highlight of the day was watching Sabrina try to communicate with our waitress, since she spoke not a single word of English, she asked for a slice of lemon, and got 4 euros worth of a cup of fresh squeezed lemons.

This meal finished off what was as fabulous trip, and we made back to the apartment to get our Uber to the airport. My love for Paris grows each time I’m there. It is a city of soft demure beauty, I am living in a city that has equally as impressive history but Paris takes romance to a whole new level, from its architecture, to its fashion to its food, to its men. Everything done to breathtaking perfection that I hope to return to many more times in my life.