hi paris!

for the last leg of our trip we took a high speed train from avignon to paris - we spent a few days before flying back to california. since we had hit a lot of the major sites on our last visit, this time around we were much more relaxed and didn't feel as much rush to squeeze in so much sightseeing. and, it's paris so it's perfectly lovely just to be in the city! so, we tried our best to just walk around and enjoy the city, eat a lot of cheese and croissants, drink a lot of coffee, and admire how cool everyone dressed. i went on a spree when we returned where i only wore navy blue, black, and grey like the parisians but it lasted only a short while and i eventually ran out of black clothing. upside, you need less clothes as everything you wear looks the same anyway!

here are some pics, but of course, they don't do the city justice:

 view from our airbnb - we stayed on the Ile Saint-Louis, where the Notre Dame Cathedral is

 delicious Brittany-style buckwheat crepes at Breizh Cafe

 espresso and cider 

 tasty crepe

 merci - beautiful store

wood bricks at the flea market

huge french press at department store. i was hoping that staub cookware would be cheaper over there, which it is slightly, but it would also be kind of ridiculous to be dragging cast iron ware over the atlantic. 

 oh boy this was the most tasty bakery - pain de sucre (i think the triangle was filled with meat, and the circle is pictured below, a sweet minced meat). i'm not much of a pastry/bakery person, but everything we tried here so was so unique and tasty-looking that it was hard to just pick several to try.

 apple pastry stick and in the background is a cumin roll. we were too shy to take a picture of the inside, but it was all dark wood with pastries of all kinds piled high. we took them to the nearest costa where we sat in the corner and devoured all four pastries in quick succession. 

 the largest flea market in the world, on the outskirts of town. it was pretty quiet when we went and not all the vendors were out, but apparently it's usually quite bustling! if you've ever seen the movie "midnight in paris" they visit here. i found a neat little serving plate from air france from the 60's for my parents, advertising that they travel to japon. i wondered aloud if i could find a similar plate to china from the same era, then quickly realized my mistake. 

 we walked up the eiffel tower at night - on one of the lower levels they set up a ice skating rink with flashing lights and music. it was kind of intense going down because it started to get late and people were getting panicky waiting for the elevators down. 

we met up with a friend from here and spent the day together in paris, ending with wonderful ice cream from berthillon. along the way we ate at a bistro where the waitress looked just like esmerelda from the hunchback of notre dame.