La visite de Jacqueline

This weekend my dear friend, Jacqueline, traveled approximately 234,234,754,173 miles (from Bretagne, northwestern France) all the way to Paris to visit her friends in Paris. Once she had seen all of them, she had time to kill and called me up.

We basically walked for 2 days, and came across an awesome variety of cool things in Paris. We met up Saturday after lunch and I took Jac to my sweet apt. to show off my view of the Eiffel Tower and introduce her to my host mom, who likes her because they both live in Brittany (kinda).

Day one of our walking tour of Paris included the Eiffel Tower and a long stretch of the Left Bank, hot chocolate and my first visit to Gilbert Jaune, an enormous bookstore where I bought a copy of L'Etranger that I have been enjoying since.

Day two took us to the Jeu du Pomme art gallery in the Tuileries garden, where we got free admission thanks to Jac's friend of a friend. The exhibition consisted of two French photographers, one of whom focused mainly on the United States, and the other of whom was weird as all get out. Very cultured. From there we checked out the Place de la Concorde, which I had never really spent time in. Most of Paris's major landmarks are visible from Concorde; the Eiffel Tower, Invalides, etc. line the horizon, plus you can see all the way down the Champs Elysées through the Arc de Triomphe and the modernist Grande Arche at La Défense.

We then hit up the Marais for some killer falafel at L'As du Falafel, endorsed by Lenny Kravitz. Lenny wouldn't lie; it's very good. (Still, I later visited the much less popular falafel stand across the street and found their falafel to be just as good without the wait. You gotta try L'As Du, though. I mean, come on, Lenny Kravitz.) After lunch, Jac's friend Lenaïc drove us (very well, I might add) to the Mosquée de Paris, where we gave ourselves a little self-guided tour. It was my first time in a mosque, and I really wished Professor Zadeh was there to explain everything to me.

Leaving the mosque, we happened to notice a massive park across the street, the Jardin des Plantes. Apart from having a sweet labyrynth (i.e. a spiral pathway to the top of a gazebo-capped hill), the Jardin also includes WALLABIES. Who knew? Next we walked to the Panthéon (awesome) and along the way saw remnants of Paris's 12th century city wall, the Enceinte de Philippe Auguste. From there we went to have tea with Jacqueline's old host family from her study abroad semester in Paris. They were lovely and I managed to understand them during our conversation. Win.

We tried to hit up a sweet restaurant Jac found at Trocadéro, but after a lengthy voyage we realized it was closed due to a major disaster? a national holiday? No, just because most places in France are closed every Sunday. Lucky for us, we managed to find possibly the best deal I've gotten in Paris (rivaled only by my 24 euro dress shoes that I wear constantly): menu crêpe in St. Michel - 1 jambon fromage oeuf, 1 banane nutella, 1 bouteille of cider = 6 euros! Unbelievable deal, which I will surely take advantage of many times this semester.

After 3,253,436,235,423 kilometers walked and many sights seen, Jac went back to (boring) Bretagne and I kept living my (exciting) life in Paris. I can't wait to visit Bretagne though!