This past weekend it
was back to Paris, but with a special guest: John! A little over a month ago he
decided he wanted to come but I wasn’t about to hold my breath because who
actually just takes time off work and flies all the way to Paris to see their girlfriend?
Well, luckily enough for me, he does!
We reunited at around
10am Saturday morning, and to my surprise he had found his way from the airport to
the airbnb with a very limited amount of problems (his French is pretty much
“bonjour” et “merci” so I'm banking on the fact that a lot of French people speak English ;). But, with the time change he could barely keep his eyes open so
he, in what would turn out to be a recurring theme of the weekend, took a nap while I planned out where to go.
The second priority
was food, so I led us to a small and deceiving hole-in-the-wall crepe and galette place
nearby that looks pretty average but is actually really well known. And, for a good reason. We each got
an enormous chorizo, goat cheese, and potato galette (Tgod buckwheat flour has no gluten) and agreed that they were
one of the most delicious things we’ve ever had, minus the fact that towards
the end I didn’t think I’d be able to finish mine without vomiting (I did
finish sans vomit though, tgod because I just can't turn down food like that).
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| yes I had already taken a bite before the pic #hangry |
As we ate, we walked
to the Luxembourg Gardens, sat and people-watched while enjoying the beautiful
weather, took some pics, and digested our massive meal. Once we felt a little
less bloated, we meandered through St. Germain – a beautiful neighborhood with
plenty of stores so basically I was salivating at the window displays the
entire time. We ended up working our way to the Seine, where we engaged in one
of the most touristy but also highly necessary things – the love lock bridge. Seriously, we couldn't go to Paris and not do it, so bear with us. We found a cool hand-painted lock, put our names and the date on it, and tried
to find a spot. But sadly, the love lock bridge was taken down as it was too heavy (an outrage if you ask me, like just FIO),
so we settled for placing our lock with the other non conformers on a fence overlooking
the Seine (basically the same, right?)
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| jardins de Luxembourg |
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| squinty |
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| finding a perfect spot may or may not have taken 10 minutes |
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| pop, *lock*, and drop it... into a squat |
I then proceeded (on
video) to try and throw the key into the water, not realizing there was a
sidewalk below us, and almost nailed a small child in the head….suuuuper awkard
but also a great representation of our relationship as it’s pretty much just me
embarrassing myself constantly. So, we had to walk down to the sidewalk, pick
up the keys, and try again… second time’s the charm, right?
After that typical
day-in-the-life moment, we worked our way over the right bank, I dragged John to
Starbucks and then he dragged me to the lawn in front of the Louvre where he
once again napped…but tbh I may have napped for a little as well so no
complaints there. And, I entertained myself by taking pictures of him sleeping
so it was a GT for sure.
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| human pillow |
We then tried to sugar
ourselves up at Angelina’s but the line was ridiculous so we passed and got
some macaroons instead, or I should say I force fed him macaroons. Then it was back to the airbnb for some more extensive
(read: two hours) napping before heading out to a late dinner at Bouillon
Chartier, which was fast, pretty, delicious, and cheap, so basically all we
wanted/needed. Then we hopped on the metro, drank 3 euro wine from the bottle like you
can only do in France (#ballinonabudget) and headed back to St. Germain to a
bar/club I had read about called Le Cavern. It’s a wine bar on the first floor for if you're classy and wine cellar club in the basement for when you're feeling trashy. The drinks weren’t cheap, but they were
quite strong and the music was American, even though the DJ played Kanye when
we asked for Drake (we’re still a little salty but it’s fine). We ended up
staying until 2:30am, which definitely did not help John’s adjustment to the
time zone, but ~YOLO~ we were in Paris and there were tequila shots soooo.
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| spot the preppy american |
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| can't decide if keeping it in the bag made it worse or not |
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| seemed like a good idea at the time |
We ended up not
leaving the airbnb the next day until 1:00, slightly ashamed, looking good, and feeling better. We
then checked in at our hotel for Sunday night, which was right by the Eiffel
Tower, picked up some GF bread, ham, cheese, apples, beer, Gatorade and chips
at the supermarket and had a picture-perfect picnic/hangover detox at the Champ
du Mars in front of the Eiffel Tower. We ended up staying there for a while as
it was such a nice day out, then worked our way over to the Trocadero Gardens
for more views aka ~artsy pics~ and over to Bert’s Café for some much needed
coffee where we channeled our inner old French man and people-watched from our
table on the sidewalk. On our walk back to the hotel, we caught the sunset over
the Seine with the Eiffel Tower in the background and may or may not have taken
some selfies, but no shame because it was beautiful. (Side note: watch out NYC,
Paris is getting up there in my list of favorite cities).
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| nothing better |
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| don't ask how we took this picture |
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| follow-up to the #followmeto |
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| don't kill me |
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| cliché but still love it |
After some more
napping on John’s part, we headed to dinner at Le Petit Cler, which was, to no
surprise, delicious, and finished just before 11:00 so we had time to
sprint-walk over to the Eiffel Tower and catch it all lit up. You could
definitely say it was très romantique
besides the men constantly trying to sell us wine and champagne. To say we didn't almost take them up on their offer would be a lie but we probably would've passed out on the Champ du Mars right then and there if we had more wine in our system. So, we headed back to the hotel for some much needed (?) sleep.
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| even prettier at night |
Monday morning we were
up and at ‘em around 11:00 (impressive for us) and headed straight to Angelina for take two. We
were much more successful and gorged ourselves on their world-famous hot
chocolate. The name is deceiving though, because this was not your average
Swiss Miss, and tgod for that bc the price was worth approximately 100 packets
of Swiss Miss. It was literally a melted chocolate bar. We left feeling fat,
dumb, and oh-so-happy (minus the fact that John thinks he’s lactose intolerant,
whoops). Then I dragged us across the city to a disappointing GF bakery, and
made John be truly French and buy a ham and cheese baguette at the bakery
next door before we headed to the train (aka another location to nap).
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| pinkies up |
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| I tried |
By 3:30, we were back
in Tours, and got John settled into his airbnb. Seeing as Tours isn’t the most
exciting city in the world and I had class a lot Tuesday and Wednesday, I’ll
spare you all the details of our time here. But, we did have some more great
food, and on Tuesday night (our one year anniversary) we celebrated the only
way we knew how by drinking wine at dinner, then splitting a bottle of champagne, and then
going to a favorite local bar with an eclectic (?) range of very sexual shot names (all in English, of course) such as “Sex & Fire” and “Blow Job.” (Sorry, mom
& dad).
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| had to go to my fave cafe in Tours |
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| wish I could've watched him try to speak French when buying these |
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| legitimate piece of pepper |
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| eclectic for sure |
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| carbs = great end to a great week |
This morning, after
realizing at 5:30am that he left his backpack at dinner the night before, we
frantically contacted the restaurant and by some unusual luck, the owner had come in
early so we grabbed his bag and legitimately sprinted to the train station
where John had a 6:19am three hour train with two stops, then a three hour
wait at the airport before take off...the things he does for me! Much love and
many thanks to him for making the trek all the way out here to see me, Paris, and Tours, but mostly the back of his eyelids, and for
keeping me company during my otherwise lonely days! And, here’s to hoping he
gets some naps in on the plane ride back ;) See you (& Tom Brady) in
December!!! <3
À bientôt!
Joanna
À bientôt!
Joanna
