Good Food & Good Company Part II (Sharon visits)

-catch up post!-

My travel plans kind of laid themselves out in a way that left me with a large 5 week gap of no traveling. While it was nice to enjoy Paris and all of it's haughty glory, part of me was itching to get out of the country again. Luckily, my visitors helped make my weekends more exciting. Sharon visited on the 3rd weekend of November, and even though her stay was pretty short, we had such a good time together. 

Friday Nov 14

I usually don't have classes on Fridays, but we had off on Tuesday for Armistice Day, so we had a full day of make-up classes. Yuck. Sharon came in-between my classes, so after she arrived at school, we had a quick lunch at Formules Delices and I dropped her off to go explore the Notre Dame and Shakespeare & Co. We met again afterwards, and went to Chartier for dinner (super cheap, super touristy restaurant). We were super full, so we ended up walking all the way to the Eiffel Tower. It was a long walk, but I haven't seen or talked to Sharon in a really long time, so it was a much needed catch-up time. We had the most yummy marron crepe, and had the perfect seats across the Seine to watch the tower light up at 11pm. This sounds terribly cliche, but everytime I see the tower light up, a part of my heart lights up with it as well. I think I'll end up missing it a lot more than I thought :') The original plan was to go out and drink, but we decided to just go home and have some much needed rest instead.

Saturday November 15

Rough things

I haven't posted in a while again.. my apologies! The semester is quickly coming to an end, and there are still so many things in my mind that I need to record before I go back to New York. Already, so many of my memories are beginning to fade, and I'm starting to feel rushed :( Hopefully I'll be able to catch up soon! Anyways, before I start writing about my trips, I thought that I should point out a pretty terrible ordeal that I went through recently...

We had off on Tuesday, Nov 11th because it was Armistice Day in France. I didn't have many plans, so I decided to go on a solo trip to Versailles. It took only a few hours out of my morning, so I basically ended up with the rest of the day to hang out and relax. I had some work to do, so Jenn and I decided to go to the Starbucks near Grands Boulevards to get some work done. It's only a 15 minute walk away, and the inside was really nice and cozy. We found adjacent tables in the corner of the store, and I managed to actually get a lot of work done. A few hours into our visit, my mouth was getting bored, so I decided to go up and get a muffin. I figured that Jenn would watch my stuff, and even if she didnt, I didn't have to worry because I was in a corner seat, and whoever came to my table would first have to pass by Jenn's table. Turns out, someone managed to lean over the 4foot wooden ledge that separated my table from the door and swipe my phone right off my seat.

Needless to say.. I was appalled. I had never had my phone stolen before, and I never imaged that it would happen so blatantly. I spent at least 30 minutes just devouring the muffin and casually searching around for my iphone. It was weird... I was upset to a point where I couldn't express my anger and was totally calm. I managed to lock my phone, and luckily I had a spare iPhone 4, so I just imported all my iCloud information onto that instead. My parents were super understanding of the situation, and my dad even ordered me and iPhone 6 (for me when I get back) the day I told him what happened. Super thankful for that.

Fast forward a few weeks, and I had decided to Facetime with Glenn. About three minutes into our chat, my computer suddenly blacked out and was replaced with a grey screen prompting me for a four-digit pincode. I called Glenn, and he told me out that the same thing happened with his computer too. Long story short, it turns out that whoever stole my iPhone got ahold of my personal information and hacked into my iCloud to lock my devices from the inside out. Apparently this is a really serious hack, and it took me over two weeks to resolve it. For two weeks, the majority of my day consisted of asking for extensions and reschedules on assignments and interviews, hours of being put on hold by Apple, and fruitless attempts to fix my computer at local computer shops. Since I didn't have a computer, I would purposely wake up at 6am to go to school early and leave at almost 8pm everyday just to catch up on internship work and homework assignments. I was really tired and down during this time, especially because this hack occurred at a time where I really needed my computer, and it was terribly inconveniencing on so many levels. I was also very disappointed that a random person would go out of their way to do this to me.

Eventually, I found a place that could help me fix my computer, and although there was a serious lack of communication and some delays, I managed to unlock my computer. It cost me 120 euros (that I cannot afford right now..seriously), but they were able to save all of my data, which is more than what I could've asked for.

I'm a lot poorer but much happier now, and my stress levels have dropped considerably. To end this post, here are some photos from the beautiful Versailles- the last photos I took with my dear iPhone 5!

Good Food and Good Company

Had my first solo visitor this weekend! We ended up planning this really last minute, but somehow it worked out so Chris came to visit me from London this weekend. He came by an overnight bus on Friday morning, and left Saturday evening so we didn't have much time together but we enjoyed the time we had thoroughly. We had planned on having a chill~ weekend, and it ended up being just that.

Friday

I woke up early to pick Chris up from Bercy station on Friday morning, and since Jenn was still sleeping, we went to Du Pain et Des Idees and I finally got to try their famous "escargot" pastries. As expected, they were crazy delicious, and we walked around the Canal for a bit just munching out and catching up. We picked up some groceries and headed over to my apartment, where I made lunch for the both of us to kickstart the long day ahead of us. We dropped by St. Christopher's Inn (the hostel where he stayed) to drop off Chris's stuff, and even though the neighborhood was pretty foreign and mostly minority-populated, it was interesting to step off the beaten path and enjoy the ethnic communities that are over overlooked in Paris. Afterwards, we headed to the Sacre Coeur, and climbed all the way to the top. It was super tiring, but worth visiting a second time. We went inside the basilica this time, and while it was no Duomo, it was still really beautiful. I got to lit a candle and prayed a little as well :)

We walked down towards Montmarte and Chris got to see the seedier 18th arrondisement near the Moulin Rouge. La Rue de Clichy is pretty nice, but there's a long section of it that's covered in sex shops and other weird places. I felt pretty uncomfortable walking through it even during the daylight, but it was something that's pretty well-known in Paris I guess. We were tired after all the walking, so we went to a Tunisian bakery and rewarded ourselves with some random ethnic pastries that tasted kind of funny but were strangely addicting. We took the metro at Place de Clichy and got off at the Tuileries. We hadn't planned on visiting the jardin or the Louvre, but we had so much time so we ended up strolling around that area and taking photos before walking all the way to St. Paul. I REALLY wanted Chris to try L'as Du Fallafel but it was closed again. I tried going there with Paul last time and it was closed too HAHA must remind myself that it's closed on Fridays and Saturdays**! We ended up going to King of Fallafel again, and it was actually pretty good so I left satisfied. I wasn't sure if I wanted to drink a lot this weekend, but we figured we might as well take advantage of a happy hour sign we saw on our way there, so we went to a pub to grab some happy hour cocktails and drinks. And then Pozzetto happened. So great, always.

It felt like so much time had passed, but it was only 6:30pm, so we decided to walk to the Notre Dame and then go to the Eiffel Tower. Originally, we had planned on taking the RER to the Eiffel Tower, but we were so full we ended up walking all the way there. It was a long walk, and took us almost an hour, but we luckily made it just in time to watch all the shimmering lights go off at 8pm. Of course, I couldn't bring someone to the Eiffel Tower without getting churros, so we ordered some chichis avec chocolat noisette, and the guy serving them made them fresh just for us. It was heavenly. I felt like snorlax and had the worst food coma afterwards, but I think it was quite worth it. We were supposed to get more drinks at his hostel's bar before going home, but we were so tired that we ended up just going to a brasserie and getting some fruit juice before calling it a night. I think we're getting old.. are we?

Saturday

Today was supposed to be dedicated to Versailles, but we had planned our timing pretty poorly, so it would've been super hectic for us to go at such a late hour. We decided to have another chill day instead, which was perfect. I went to go pick Chris up at Crimee, and there was a cute little flea market going on, so we walked around it for a few blocks. We wanted to save money on lunch, so we went to Marche Franprix, and I got my FAVORITE TUNA SANDWICH EVER hehe. I wanted to go to the Picasso museum which just reopened this month, so we headed there but the lines were too long so we just ended up eating our sandwiches at a park in the Marais, which was equally nice. The weather was really on and off this weekend, but for the most part it was pretty nice, so we ended up walking all~ the way to St.Germain, with a quick bathroom break at school. After visiting Monoprix to buy some things for Steve's midterm care package (hoho), we went to Pierre Hermes. The line was surprisingly long and we waited for almost 30 minutes, but as per usual, it would've been worth it ten times over. I don't know how Pierre Hermes does it. My budget is basically non-existent at this point, but I can't stop going. It's too good. As if the day wasn't good enough already, we met with Jenn at Belleville to have some pho to warm our hearts and our bodies hehe. I usually never ever get pho, but I was craving it for some reason today and it hit the spot so nicely. We walked home to digest, and picked up some wine, cheese, and crackers along the way. Chris had been raving to us about House of Cards all weekend, so we decided to watch an episode before he left. I'm not really one for t.v shows and stuff, but it was kind of captivating. I think I'll give it another go when I have some time! I dropped Chris off at Bercy, and now I'm currently in my bed melting into my blanket and trying to plan some work out for next week. I had a very fatty and kind of pricey weekend, but this is my third to last weekend in Paris, so I'm glad I got to enjoy it the way I did!

Some photos~

Du Pain!

The famed Pistachio Escargot and my Cream Cheese & Fruit escargot *_*

Bibimyun, fried eggs, corn, and pan seared, garlic marinated cod.

i love this so much.

PIERRE HERMESSS

Wednesdates

Every other Wednesday, I only have one class in the morning that ends at 10:30am, so it's nice to have the rest of the day to myself. Erica and I also conveniently have the exact same schedule, so we've been taking advantage of the free time that we've had since midterms ended last week. We haven't had a meal out together in a while (eating sandwiches in the school library doesn't quite count I think.. although we do it a lot) so we decided to have some brunch after French today. After some speculation, we decided on a restaurant called Treize (a baker's dozen), which is close to the St.Germain-des-Pres station.

The restaurant is tucked away in a little alleyway, so it was a little difficult to come by, but it was so so so so so so worth it. I think it's been my favorite meal in Paris thus far. It's owned by an ex-pat from the South, so the decor is really quaint and cozy. The kitchen is actually located right at the back of the interior, so you can see them cooking and conversing just a few feet away from you. It reminds me of eating at someone's house, and the warm smells of homemade Southern food are actually so intoxicating. They serve the menu attached to madeleine pans, which is so weird but cute. A lot of the menu items end with things like "Eggs and .. bacon (or whatever else we think might sound good today)." I love it! I really wished I took Steve here, he would've fallen in love with the place :(

Anyways, I decided to get the Southern biscuit French toast, which sounds odd but is actually ingenious. The owner was telling us about it, and basically she decided had some leftover biscuits one day, so she decided to put some honey butter in them and turned them into French toast. WHAT. The result was so amazing. I actually had about 5~ pieces on my plate, but when she came over, she explained to me that she was never sure of how many of these to make, so she had some extra in the pan and would gladly feed them to me if I wanted more. Again- what the heck. Who the hell says that? I was so delighted to hear such nice words, but I wasn't sure if I would be that hungry. I took a bite of the biscuit and basically died. This post is so jumbled and sounds so childish but it's because I am really genuinely so excited about this restaurant. The biscuits were amazing, and I ended up devouring them in minutes. The owner actually came over with her pan in hand, and proceeded to give me (and Erica) seconds. I think I went to heaven for a few minutes. Afterwards, we were super full from our meals, but we wanted to try their popular desserts, so we ended up getting a lemon cake and a carrot cake (in a jar!). Both were equally amazing, and the pear/apple/lavender pot of tea we ordered went perfectly with it. It was kind of a pricey meal, but Erica and I've already decided to make that our spot. It's just too perfect.

I had originally planned on going to the Louvre and exploring by myself after, but Erica and I felt terribly fat so we decided to go to the Canal St.Martin for a run. We went to shop at a thrift store in the Hotel de Ville area first, but ended up not doing much and getting a Mcdonalds Mcflurry instead hahah. We got too lazy to run so Erica came over after and I made her korean food, as per usual when she comes over. I had such a fat, lazy day, and part of me is super worried about gaining weight here, but I think my excitement over Treize balances that out pretty well. Good day!!!

my seconds. so amazing

Fast Track to Domestication

Growing up, I was never able to use the kitchen much because my stay-at-home mom was always very reluctant to let us make our own food and things like that. I was one of those kids that walked into college without knowing how to do the dishes or make even the simplest things, like fried eggs.

I gained an immense amount of weight my freshman year at NYU. Honestly, I had no idea. I thought I had gained maybe like, 5 or 10 pounds, but the reality was that I almost gained freshman 20 HAHA. I think that this sudden change can mostly be attributed to the fact that cheeseburgers and fries were my foods of choice at the all-you-can-eat dining halls in our school.

Luckily, I lived in an apartment-style dorm my sophomore year, and managed to shed off a good chunk of my tubbiness. It was the first time I really experienced cooking, and because I have a really weird palette, I ended up eating a lot of random things throughout the year. Chicken quesadillas with corn, spring herb quinoa patties, pan-seared chicken with eggs, stuff like that. It wasn't super healthy, but it was definitely a step up from the crap I ate my freshman year.

Fast forward to this semester, and I'm currently living in an apartment with my friend Jenn. Not a dorm, not an apartment-style dorm, but an actual studio apartment with real, adult neighbors (hahha). It was an interesting change, going from living in a bustling dorm with five other girls to suddenly moving into a small, residential neighborhood with just one friend. We assumed we would be cooking a lot, but because we traveled a lot on the weekends, we usually ended up eating simple things throughout the week, like fried rice and pre-packed sandwiches.

Since my days of heavy traveling have kind of come to a momentary halt, I've had time to settle in a bit more. It's been nice, and my apartment actually feels like home now. I've been using a lot of this time to rest at home (which is something I hardly got to do in the city) and also to plan my future trips out. I came into this semester with traveling as my primary goal, so I set up most of my budget towards it. What I didn't realize (until after I booked everything..) was that I kind of under-budgeted my living costs here. I can call and ask my parents for more money, but I decided not to because me coming here was a big financial pain in the ass in the first place.

Naturally, I've been cooking a lot more, and because my days are often so quiet, cooking my lunches and dinners has actually started to become some of the more interesting parts of my day. This sounds super pathetic, but I'm actually very thankful. In the city, I get so caught up in the hustle and bustle of interning and meeting people and going to school that I kind of forget to be a person sometimes. I've had really weird cravings during my time here, but it's kind of funny in retrospect. When I first came to Paris, I was really craving fresh fruit, because it was so cheap and accessible in Queens, but constantly shopping for one-persons servings of fruit on a tight budget gets harder here. I managed to balance out my budget, and have since incorporated a daily stream of grapes and clementines in my regular diet. After Steve left, I got terrible food poisoning and barely ate for a week. During that time, Jenn made me a lot of jook, so for some weird reason, I was craving jook basically 24/7 for about two weeks afterwards. That time has since passed, and at the moment, I've really been into things like quinoa, onions, and cheese. I basically take whatever ingredients I have in my kitchen and pan-fry them to a nice mixed dish.

I've also been craving fish for the longest time (esp after having the best fish and chips in London), but I was always too weary of the packaged fish at the markets and too shy to go buy them from the actual fish mongers at the outdoor markets. I was going to just eat quinoa again for dinner today, but I was REALLY REALLY craving fish, so Jenn convinced me to go to Dia and buy some. I ended up getting pre-packaged cod, and I was so nervous at first, but I ended up making a nice dinner with pan-fried lemon-herb cod, rice with seaweed, and eggs. It wasn't a gourmet meal, but it was my first time cooking fish, and I was very very satisfied.

Cooking here has been such an adventure for me, and although I'm sad that I don't have an oven to bake fun autumn and winter treats, I'm excited to see how I can continue to broaden my culinary horizons HAH :)

I will leave you with a few photos of my cooking (don't make fun of me):

today's dish! hehe

Drifting Thoughts

Before I start on my massive load of backlogged posts, I wanted to just jot down some thoughts that I've been having lately.. in no particular order.

Weekends in France
Because I spent almost the entirety of September and October traveling on the weekends, I've technically only had two real weekends in Paris. Part of it was because I wanted to take advantage of the light courseload and the nice weather- part of it was because I wanted to leave Paris. After planning the rest of my semester out, I realized that I accidentally planned my travels so that I have a month-long gap in which I'm here in Paris for my weekends. I've currently passed 1/4 of those weekends, and while last weekend was fun because Paul was here and I had to catch up on some schoolwork, I was really afraid of the coming weekends, particularly because Jenn, Erica, and Garam are all leaving this weekend to travel. Even though I  have been opening up to Paris a lot more ever since my parents left, I wasn't sure if I was at that point where I could be comfortable spending a weekend here by myself. I was so nervous and desperate that I began searching for flights to literally anywhere.  I just wanted to get out this weekend, and almost booked a solo trip to Poland on a whim, but ended up deciding to stay. I realized that I have very few weekends left in this marvelous city, and that this would be a good chance to explore the city on my own and actually reach out to the friends that I've made here this semester. Chris is visiting next weekend, and Sharon is coming the week after, so technically this may be the only weekend that I have here by myself. I realized that that too, is a gift, so I hope that I can enjoy it to the fullest.

Worlds Colliding
Speaking of Chris, my home friends Lois and Chris got to meet with Steve, Paul, and Patrick in London yesterday. Lois has known Steve for a bit, and definitely liked him, but it was the first time that my home friends and school friends were hanging out without me. I was definitely envious, as I miss them all terribly, but I was also very excited for them. Turns out that they all had a really great time together, and it felt so wonderful getting back such positive feedback from both parties. I'm so happy that Lois and Chris not only approve of Steve, but that they actually genuinely like him as a person and us as a couple. The opinions of all my friends are important to me, but to hear such encouragement from those that are dearest to me really put a warm feeling in my hear. Especially after some weird encounters with my home/college friends earlier during my sophomore year, this meant a lot to me. I hope that we will all continue to hang out together and grow even closer to each other in the near and far future.

Church
Because I've been traveling, I've only had the opportunity to go to church one weekend this semester, and that was back when I first arrived. I finally had the chance to go back to Hillsong Paris this weekend, and I am so happy that I did. Although the worship is in French, the sermon is giving by pastors from Hillsong London, who genuinely love and believe in the French people and the ministry as a whole. In a country that is as secular as France, religion isn't very highly regarded, so coming into this closed space and seeing so many Frenchmen and fellow outsiders praise and worship so freely was the biggest encouragement. This is kind of embarrassing, but the tears just kept flowing from my eyes at times. It's amazing to know that wherever we are in the world, that wherever we are in our lives at any given moment, we are praising the same God.

Yikes!!

I just realized that almost a month has passed without any updates on my blog..whoops. So many things have happened, and even though I haven't been super busy, I guess this just fell off my list of priorities for a while. I have some time in the next two weeks, so hopefully I can catch up before my new round of adventures start! In the meanwhile, here's a quick list of blog posts that I need to catch up on, mainly for my own reference-

- health
- steve visits paris
- italy with parents!
- madrid with parents
- amsterdam
- paul's visit
- making paris my home

Espana!

Like I mentioned before, I went on a quick getaway to Barcelona this weekend for 2 nights and 2 days. It was quite an experience- tiring in many ways, but also very engaging and novel. Here's a quick breakdown of what I did.

Friday
- Woke up at 4am to catch a 6:30am flight to BCN (remind me to never book early flights again)
- Met with the girls from Madrid and headed to Avenue Mistral to check into our weekend house
- Dropped off all of our stuff and headed to Boqueria, a famous food market near La Ramblas
- Had the best coconut juice I've ever tasted in my life, paired with some other mind-blowing croquettes and snacks
- Went shopping at Zara and finally bought that blue jacket I've been eyeing for a month now
- Visited Casa Batlló
- Went back home and PTFO-ed for a few hours from exhaustion
- Ate dinner at Blai 2Night and had the most delicious and affordable pintxos ever ever ever.
- Met with Lumi and headed to Opium for a night of clubbing and fighting off creepy 30-year old men
- Jumped into the beach with all of our clothes still on
- Die at 5 in the morning and revived promptly at 12pm the next day  

Saturday
- Had brunch at another tapas place
- Visited Sagrada Familia
- Walked a very long walk to the beaches at Barceloneta
- Ended up swimming in my undergarments :x
- Collected sea glass for the first time! I was super excited about that :)
- Ate a late lunch at another tapas bar that we went to by accident, but it ended up being very yummy
- Visited Parc Guell and saw a breathtaking view of Barcelona, along with some of the most intriguing tiles that I've seen
- Went home for another siesta
- Had dinner at some paella place
- Walked around a bit and ended the night by getting McFlurries at Mcdonalds

Sunday
- 4am departure (reminder #2 to never book early flights again)

Since I'm on a run with lists, here are some random things that I noticed about Spain:
- Spaniards are truly some of the most beautiful groups of people that I've laid eyes on
- Spaniards also have no shame in cat-calling to girls in addition to shouting "ne hao" at us every other block
- Prices are notably cheaper than in France
- Sausages and potatoes are a large part of their diet
- Spanish food is hands down some of the best food I've had. Their bombas and spanish omelettes are to die for.
- I'll add more as they come into my head.


Once again, I leave you with some photos of our trip :)

i would give my left leg to eat this again