Markets and a little more Paris

On our last day in Annecy we decided to go to the large street market that is open every Sunday.  It was extremely crowded; the streets were full stands selling vegetables, cheeses, bread, raclette and other sandwiches, prepared foods, pastries, and more. Monisha was in heaven. While we walked through the market we ate a fig that was perfectly ripe and delicious, (part of) a pear that was not really ripe and not at all delicious, a cold Asian shrimp and meat pocket that was fine but…cold, and a sausage served with caramelized onions that was yummy and very much reminded Monisha of the sausage and caramelized onions dish her dad makes. They we bought a baguette, fresh goat cheese, another small cheese round, and two tomatoes that formed our lunch by the lake :).  Walking through the market was fun but difficult to navigate. We didn’t realize that there were this many people in all of Annecy!

We also saw this ENORMOUS dog at the market! We miss Rosebud.

Later we had a smooth but long BlaBla car ride back. We ran into quite a bit of traffic near Paris that turned the last hour of the trip into the last two and a half hours. Once we got back we decided to go out for Pho round two. Erica told us not to tell anyone that she let us eat Pho twice while visiting Paris, but alas… At the Pho place we met a Vietnamese woman who now lives in Germany. It was her birthday :). We chatted a bit about traveling, and Vietnamese food. She told us that the Pho we were eating was really good, and that she would know since she grew up in Vietnam.  It’s fun to meet people while traveling; what a strange combination we made, two Californians making small talk with a Vietnamese-German woman in Paris.

The next two days have been pretty relaxed. We’ve spent most of our time wandering the streets, parks, and cafés of Paris.  Yesterday morning we ate a drop (kind of like a pain au chocolate, but with crème patissiere inside as well) from Maison Landemaine and then went to a place called Used Book Café to try and finish a blog post. It was quite a charming café with bookshelves lining the whole place. We got fromage blanc with house-made granola and fruits and a hot chocolate. Unfortunately the internet was quite bad so the finishing our blog post didn’t quite happen.

Nolan, when he thinks Monisha is taking too many photos.

The main activity of the day was exploring to a pretty park that Erica recommended to us called Parc des Buttes Chaumont. We strolled around and lounged on benches for a couple of hours while having particularly nice conversation. We spent such an absurd amount of time together that sometimes it’s hard to find new fun conversation topics. Fortunately, we enjoy just being with each other in silence as well and don’t need to fill up every moment with talking. But yesterday, we were blabbing away happily all day, which was fun.

Afterwards we spent an hour in a café right along a canal with a great layout. The café is inside an old house, and every room has been kept largely the same. People eat and drink in the kitchen, bathroom (someone was actually sitting in the bathtub with a little table and reading!), living room, bedroom and more!  Here we successfully wrote up our blog post about Annecy before heading back to Erica’s to cook a dinner of pesto-pasta, caramelized onions, eggs, tomatoes, and goat cheese. On the way we picked up a quiche as an appetizer and an Opera Cake and Paris Brest from Lorette patisserie.

 

We also went to another market, this time in Paris. The Aligre market is filled with people selling fruits and vegetables, kind of like a farmers market in the States but with slightly more aggressive sales tactics.  We learned later that this is the market where a lot of local restaurants come to buy their veggies.  We got a taste of a delicious melon and an average mango before moving towards another area of the market selling non-edible items. Monisha thought it would be nice to try and read a book in French, so we took a look over a large table filled with second-hand French books.  We didn’t find anything that piqued her interest quite enough, but did see a very cute children’s counting book, and a ginormous French-English dictionary that Nolan joked about buying and bringing with us.  After book-browsing we headed to the covered part of the market (yeah this is a pretty big market) and found a stand selling dairy.  Monisha wanted to buy some yogurt but couldn’t decide which flavor. Then Nolan spotted it. Moka Coffee flavor yogurt! Monisha has literally been looking for coffee flavor yogurt since we were in Iceland almost seven weeks ago. This was an instant buy, and we thoroughly enjoyed it as we walked onwards to our next destination.

In a previous post, we wrote something about basically all cathedrals being the same. The following day we received an email from Brian / Dad in which he told us he disagreed with that sentiment. He mentioned Saint Chappelle as a counter example, and said if we were still in Paris it’s worth going to see. So today, we decided to check it out.  Indeed, it is striking, and earns a place in the list of counter examples.  The cathedral (well, technically chapel) was built in the thirteenth century by King Louis IX of France to house his collection of valuable religious relics. And when we say valuable, we mean VALUABLE. One of the main relics housed in this building was a crown of thorns thought to be worn by Jesus during the crucifixion. This crown alone cost more than the entire chapel building. It’s an impressive building even today, covered in 13^th century stained glass windows telling biblical stories.

  

After Saint Chapelle we got a vegetarian crepe from La Droguerie and a falafel eggplant pita sandwich for lunch. The best part of the crepe was the cheese that they intentionally sprinkled past the edge of crepe, which allowed it to crisp up deliciously on the griddle.

Then we lounged in a park and played some Egyptian War.

That evening we spent the evening with Erica and four of her friends. One friend in the group is visiting for this week so they're doing lots of special things together. This time is was going to Erica's girlfriend's apartment (which is much bigger and nicer than Erica's) to cook and eat dinner together. The two of us contributed an appetizer of baked Camembert (switching it up from the baked brie we've made several times :P) with honey, roasted onions, and roasted garlic on baguette. The main course was an Erica special: crepes with egg, red onions, feta cheese, mint, and creme fraiche. This was a recipe she learned from her girlfriend, Laure, who is from Corsica and said it's a classic there. They were a totally different style from the savory crepe we had earlier that day, and totally delicious. During and after the very large amount of food, we spent many hours in great company. We talked a lot about having kids, adoption right and laws in France, paxing vs marrying, etc. Apparently until this year, it was illegal for a transgender person to legally change their gender without getting sterilized...! Jeez.

We’ve been DouLingo-ing regularly during out time in France. We both have a nine-day streak going. Monisha has been a long time proponent of Duolingo; it’s one of the primary ways she learned French before going to Giverny to work in the restaurant. It’s exciting for the two of us now to be learning in parallel and progressing our French while here in Paris. Nolan has really been learning a lot! Today when ordering a falafel, Monisha wanted to ask if it came with eggplant, but blanked on the French word for eggplant. Nolan was the one who remembered and reminded her of it :)