Since the sightseeing is only half the experience, I decided while writing my original post about Paris that the food deserved its own moment in the sun. I didn’t take many pictures of the food in Disneyland, since it’s pretty much what you would expect from any Disney park, but I made a point to chronicle the various places we went in Paris itself.
By the time we arrived in Paris on Thursday, it was already dinnertime, so after getting settled in the hotel and traipsing around looking for somewhere to eat, we were all tired, starving, and not looking to get too adventurous. I suppose I could’ve been a lot more authentic in my choices of French cuisine during my stay, but escargot and bouillabaisse are just a little too far out of my comfort zone, and perhaps it’ll give me an excuse to come back! Anyway, for our first night at dinner I went for a tomato and basil pasta dish with olives, and after a long day of nibbling on packaged pastries on a bus, it was damn near the best thing I’d ever eaten.
At the hotel the Wroxton students were staying in, we got a free breakfast included, and we took full advantage of it. Being a big fan of French pastries in general, I was beyond excited to see baskets overflowing with pain au chocolat at the breakfast buffet. I must’ve eaten at least four or five in the three days we were there. There were also some gigantic madeleines, not pictured because it didn’t really fit on my plate and I was too hungry to wait to take my picture before I started eating! The crepe station didn’t really offer any fillings, but I got a little crafty and took some of the applesauce that was meant to go on top of the oatmeal to put on my crepes, and it was pretty delicious.
For lunch we ended up at another cafe (seriously, they are everywhere in Paris. If New York has a Starbucks on every block, then Paris has a cute bistro on every one). Now, when you take French classes in America, there’s several whole lessons on how to order food in restaurants, and they absolutely drill several specific foods into your head. One of them is un sandwich au jambon. If you don’t speak any French and guessed this means ham sandwich, you get a gold star today. Since this is something I remembered so vividly from classes at school, that’s what I decided to get for lunch. To be honest, the only real difference it had from an American ham sandwich was the substitution of a buttered baguette for regular bread, but I thought it was pretty tasty.
We skipped dinner that night in favor of climbing the Eiffel Tower at sunset and then heading straight to the Louvre, so by the time we left the museum at close to nine, we were all tired and hungry again. The restaurant we scoped out right across the street from the entrance was open until late and the window said pizza on it, so we figured it would be some kind of late night grub place, but it was yet another cute little cafe, probably one of the fancier ones we went into. I decided to forgo the margherita pizza and burgers that my friends went for and got a crepe for myself, cheese and chorizo. It was delicious but came in a decidedly American portion size, which I sadly could not finish.
The day after that we were in Disney, eating burgers in Tomorrowland and muffins from the Main Street bakery and feeling right at home, so there’s not much to tell there. Beyond that, the only other meal we got to eat in Paris was breakfast before we left to return to Wroxton, the same buffet as before (though I did wrap several croissants up in napkins and stuff them in my backpack to take on the long bus ride back. It was a huge flaky mess and totally worth it). The very last thing I did before leaving, though, was to run down the street to the bakery and buy a baguette for myself. When you walk around Paris you really do see people with whole baguettes sticking out of the baskets on their bicycles, or you see them just walking and eating one, and that’s exactly what I did. After completing my only transaction entirely in French, where I had to haltingly ask for “un sac” because they only wrapped a little paper around the center of the loaf and I wanted to take it on the bus, I strolled back to the pickup point, munching on my baguette and feeling pretty proud of myself for getting the Parisienne experience.
This little post will hopefully tide over those of you who are wondering why I haven’t spun my next yarn yet. Unfortunately, as I have said before, I am here to study abroad, and I’ve got some papers to tackle in the coming weeks! I’ll try to get the post for the medieval banquet and Kenilworth Castle up as soon as possible, and give you my thoughts on British movie theaters (I’m just back from seeing Captain Marvel!) and Stonehenge in another post. That’s all for now!
Meghan McGowan 