Leaving the City of Lights

 What a sad day (okay, we are a little happy to go home) to leave this beautiful city. We've become accustomed to our way of life here. Bread in the morning, language lesson, sight seeing, and food. We had our last Chez Manon bread. (delicious) We took the metro to Opera and finally trekked through Galeries Lafayette to the rooftop deck which has a great view of the Opera house and the Eiffel Tower. Not a bad view for a shopping mall.

 We also got Quick burger. And you know what? Quick burger rocks. They use horseradish sauce on their burgers and have home fries. (They also were doing a promo for the Simpsons so they had a donut burger)

 We walked to Pierre Herme for our last macaroons, but unfortunately, the flavors we wanted were seasonal and were no longer there. So we tried banana, raspberry and yogurt, caramel, and one called "jardin potage" which had rocket and cucumber in it. We did some major shopping for friends and family, mostly books.

 We walked to the Seine one last time to eat the macaroons and say goodbye. Macaroons were good, but no where near as exciting as Olive Oil or creme brulee.

 We then bought a padlock on the Pont des Artists (because I read that there are in fact 2 bridges for locks, but they mean different things. Artists is for your spouse, whereas the other bridge is for your lover...and the bridge for lovers is way more crowded.) We both threw a key in the river and got lumpy. Who knew that this ritual would be so sad?

 Our lock is somewhere after the 3rd light post and after the 3rd mini bar. Next time we visit, we'll try to find it. Hopefully no one clips them. We did notice some from 2004 in our area.

 We then walked home, past Place des Vosges and I got my last macaroons from Carette (you can never have enough macaroons each day). I also picked up a St. Honore, a delicious pastry covered in cream and toffee. Aaron checked out an artists' watercolors, so we purchased one.

 And to finish off the night, we went to Moulin Rouge. After all these years, we were finally doing it.

 We couldn't take pictures inside. Like, at all. I tried to take a picture of the stage with the curtain closed and I got a nasty response. But the show was fun. Lots of boobs. The men were awful dancers but the ladies were in step, had nice high kicks, and the acts in between dances were my favorite. There was a woman who swam with snakes....yes, they brought a pool of water on the stage.

 Here's our lovely desserts....I got at least 2 pictures inside! lol

Last day of School

 Today was my last day of school. Aaron picked me up with Trixie and we said our goodbyes to Christine, Marie, and Candy. (I can't believe I don't have a single picture of any of them) We then walked with the pup to G. Detou, the baking supply store to pick up chocolate batons and pearl sugar. (and yes I bought the 5 lbs box of chocolate) We also had our last lunch at Creperie Imogene and said our goodbyes to Olivier, the waitor that gave us a hard time each week.

 I then went out for my last chance to shop the sales. Man, I should've done something else. The sales here are just a mess. Aaron went to the Orangerie by himself. I did find a store that only sold jam.

 For dinner we returned to Le Christine, the place where we ate after he proposed. Food was definitely delicious, and I ate everything. Aaron got a creme brûlée and I tried a strawberry cream pastry puff for dessert. Sweet!

And since we were feeling a bit awake after dinner, I took Aaron to Caveau de la Huchette. He had a great time, I got to dance a lot, and Aaron led me as well. Excellent way to end the night.

Fold, don't stir

 After my language class today, I had my macaroon intensive course. We made 2 types of macaroons (Italian and French) and we had to do this in pairs (my partner was RE.TAR.DED!) We made one of the 4 fillings in class (my partner was not happy to be making "jam" while the other groups made chocolate ganache and coffee flavored buttercream) I had a lot of fun folding the merengue into the almonds. Our Italian merengues turned out well while my partner swore up and down that our French macaroons had been folded too much. (They were ruined because they weren't folded enough, thanks airhead)

 Here's my Italian ones. Only a couple are cracked. Yeah me!

The yellow ones are the french awful ones. I prefer making Italian because they are less difficult.

Champagne and Chantilly

 Woke up this morning and headed off to Moet and Chandon. We weren't sure if we really wanted to do another tour, but you cant do tastings here unless you do the tour. And it actually ended up being very different from Mercier, as they focused more on the history of their house, and how much prestige they have, being the most expensive and the producers of Dom Perignon.

 I didn't get a shot with the statue or even have Trixie take a shot. Lame.

 Here's thousands upon thousands of Dom Perignon. They have to rest in the basement for at LEAST 7 years. Definitely not for the impatient. We took Trixie with us on the tour, hidden in her crate. She was a nuisance because she was making crazy smell noises, like a mix between and sneeze and a sniff, and also, she had the worst farts I've ever smelled. So yeah, we had to distance ourselves from the group. The guide probably thought we were trying to steal bottles.

 Yummy. We both got 2 glasses to sample. I got the regular blends while Aaron got the vintages. We got to samples each others and I could tell the difference between them, but I preferred the regular.

 Aaron had a little more trouble.

As we left, we spied these HUGE bottles. In the gift shop they had one as tall as up to my hips and they were asking for €1600. Jesus Christ!

 We then drove to Chantilly, but I of course fell in love with the sights outside. We stopped by a poppy field and took a shot. I had to go to the bathroom so bad so I made a mark. So did Aaron. I love that even though I consider myself to be classy and a city girl, I'm born and raised in the country and I'm never too proud to be "country". I think it always surprises Aaron when I can just be low maintenance.

 In Chantilly, we of course at Chantilly, and went to the Chateau. We didn't go inside though. Just to the stables. We saw all the horses, ponies, and chickens. There was a horse museum as well.

 Trixie loved the lawn.

Mercier, Lafond, and Reims

 We drove to the Champagne region today. First stop was Mercier, the most drank champagne in France. It's known for being flashy, and flashy it was. The big barrel in the lobby was from a huge stunt in Paris. The creator wanted champagne to be accessible to common folks, so to him, THANK YOU!

 The cellar tour was defintely something different. We had to take a tram. And not a tram that was fast or filled with tons of turns. No, I think we could've walked it faster. It was also an audio guide and included some bad theme park type mannequins.

 But the cellar was HUGE. Went on for miles actually.

 We were some of the only people to buy the grand tasting, getting to choose 3 champagnes each. My favorite was the demi sec, which is sweeter than the brut, while Aaron preferred the brut.

 Cheers!

 Trixie got to run through the grapes. I don't think she really cared that much though. Champagne isn't the best region for dogs because they're not allowed to go in the caves. It was cool enough that we could leave her in the car, but we didn't want to leave her for more than an hour.

 Next stop; Lafond. A baby winery, created in 1997. We got 6 champagnes again and they didn't really believe in putting sugar in their drinks. I liked the rose while Aaron liked the brut. He preferred this winery to Mercier.

After tasting, we went to Reims where we saw the smaller Notre Dame.

It was actually quite cosy while still being enormous. The stained glass was very different here.

Dinner was uneventful, but we did have champagne.

Croissants, anyone?

 Today I skipped a second day of school in a row! (Yikes) Ericka left the country today and I went to my first cooking class; croissants! We made regular croissants, pain au chocolat, and Almond croissants. We also used the extra dough to make yummy little jam filled pastries.

 Rolling the croissants is incredibly easy, but making dough is hard. I did learn pointers about how to not get thin edges for dough. I thought mine turned out beautifully.

And here's the end result. Yeah me!

Disney, finally

 It's taken me over 17 years, but today I finally got to attend a day at Paris Disneyland. But not before Trixie got taken care of. Weather report for today was supposed to be awful, with lots of rain, thunder, lightning, and humidity. Pretty much a  bad day to go to a theme park. But we went because we figured that most people would stay away today. And we were right. But back to Trix; we finally used the Disney dog kennels. It was a great system. You pay €10, and they water your dog, clean the cage if they have an accident, and feed them at the time you ask for. The only thing they won't do is walk your little furball....but no matter, we came back out to see her mid day.

 The park is much smaller than both disneyland CA and disneyworld. The castle is even smaller. But they have maybe 8 attractions that are different here, so those were at the top of the list. We tried their Indiana Jones ride, but the theming wasn't very Indy. It could've been any adventure movie. They didn't even play the music. It was a basic coaster. A lot of their attractions were also DOWN! Space Mountain was out of commission. And Phantom Manor and Thunder Mountain both decided to break down at the same time.

But Euro Disney DOES have something we don't. They have a dragon! He was pretty sleepy, but he did wake up momentarily.

 The sleeping beauty exhibit was different too. Lots of stained glass and tapestries.

 Alice had a labyrinth. It was actually very good and we got lost. (It poured later and I thought "how awful if we were stuck in the maze")

 It was the 20th anniversary of the park. Something we loved about this park was seeing rides we've grown up with, like Haunted Mansion or Star Tours and having the scripts in french. I actually understood some of what Rex the robot said. "Des comets!" or "Moi? C'est Rex"

 And I think because it was supposed to rain, Disney was bringing out the weird characters. Costumes that they don't care about...enter, Friar Tuck.

 Wall-e and Eve! Love them!

 We finally took the Autopia after many years of skipping it. Aaron was a bad driver though he did claim that the car was overly sensitive to turns.

 They have an Aladdin attraction here. OMG! It was actually just a walk through with non moving pieces.

 But some of the vinettes were very good. Right after this stop, it started pouring like no other. The park was filled with puddles. Flooding everywhere. We had to leave.

Trixie had a good day as well.