Adventures with Cassie…I love the Parisian life

This is much belated, but I have to tell the rest of my adventures with Cassie.  The 10 days she was here were amazing.  Our days in London, Paris, and Cambridge were just so, so special to me it was way too memorable to skip over.  So, two months later you get to hear the continuation of my love of Paris!

Now, this is sad to say, but some of the events and details have already gone a bit fuzzy.  To be honest, I am actually happy I have waited until now to write, because I think I would prefer to talk about the highlights and overall impressions of the trip.  What I remember now is clearly what really impacted me.  First of all, Paris is incredibly clean and pretty.  You know those Romeo and Juliet balconies that are always in the movies?  Well, they are everywhere.  They aren’t just in the nice districts, they are on every house.  There are beautiful cobblestone bridges and large black lanterns that put off a soft glow over the Thames River.  It is all quite enchanting.

We spent time in Montmartre where we had a street artist draw our picture.  Ben and I got one done, and I have to say, we were beautiful.   I mean really beautiful.  You have never seen perfection until you have seen this drawing.  With that being said, Ben was so beautiful that he looked well, shall we say, feminine?!  It kind of looked like Rachael and her lesbian girlfriend.  He was that pretty.  That picture kept us laughing all day.  Shockingly, Ben lost it somewhere in London on our trip home.  Thankfully we have a picture that Cassie took that at least shows half the drawing.

After our time in Montemarte, we spent the day walking the streets of Paris.  We walked to Notre Dame and heard the hallelujah chorus sung by an all boys children’s choir.  We walked down the Champs-Élysées after looking at the Arc De Triomphe and headed to the Louvre.  We didn’t actually go in the Louvre as our trip was short and we just wanted to see as much of Paris as we could.  We walked more in Paris than I have ever walked, but we didn’t rush anything.  We looked in shops, hunted down crepe makers, sipped on teas and coffee, and bought ourselves Parisian hats.

Probably my favorite part of the trip was going to Versailles.  This was my first official palace to visit and I have to say, I was blown away.  Cassie thought it was all a bit much (and it probably was), but I of course loved it.  I have just never seen such an extravagant home.  I can’t even believe that people lived there.  The house was great, but what I absolutely loved were the palace gardens.  There are nearly 2,000 acres of manicured gardens.  It is absolutely unreal.

The most amazing part of the whole thing for me, was the part of the garden that was devoted to Marie Antoinette.  She basically had become bored with her life as a queen, and decided to build a little village in the back of the gardens where she could pretend she was a commoner.  This village literally had everything that a real village had; a mill, a dairy house, livestock, and gardens enough to feed everyone.  As someone who still wanted a playhouse when they were sixteen (don’t judge me…I had a wild imagination that couldn’t be contained by age), I was absolutely in love.  It was a little girl’s dream world.  Well, I guess in me and Marie Antoinette’s case, a woman’s dream world. Ben and Cassie had to practically drag me out of this place.  Lucky for them, my boots were killing me and the rain clouds were rolling in.

We left Versailles and headed back into the city.  I think the one thing I was kind of let down about were the french dinners.  We wanted to try authentic french meals, but found those items on the menu to be fairly unappetizing.  So we ended up eating more Italian than anything else.  Cassie was extremely adventurous and tried fois gras which neither of us realized was literally duck fat that you just spread on crackers.  It came in slabs and looked absolutely revolting.  Cassie (who is a health nut…you know it’s true Cass) couldn’t bring herself to eat more than a few bites and then had to order another meal.  Unfortunately for her, she had already ordered the most expensive thing on the menu!  I tried a bit since I am trying to be a more adventurous eater, but it was a one time event for me.  I couldn’t get past the texture.  The taste was just odd, but the texture was so, I don’t know, just gross.  After this, we just went for menu items that weren’t quite as unfamiliar.

Our trip was absolutely amazing and I would go back in a heartbeat.  Paris was beautiful, buzzing with life and energy, and overflowing with tasty pastries and desserts.  We enjoyed long talks about marriage, good books, God, and how short ones shorts should be as a 27-year-old.  And I definitely won’t be forgetting anytime soon the elderly asian man with a mustache that walked onto the subway in knee-high socks, ballerina flats, a mini skirt, a women’s tweed suit jacket with pink fringe and a matching handbag.  Everyone on the subway was trying not to laugh out loud.  I have never felt so close to total strangers as I did then.  We shared conspiratory looks and hidden smiles.  Cassie and I barely kept it together.

So many incredible memories.  I loved every minute of it…well, minus the minutes that I had to swallow down bites of fois gras!

I love this. So much.

the whole village….so stinking cute

The most adorable play village ever (this is the mill)_

The amazing gardens of Versailles…so peaceful

Versailles

Marie Antoinette’s bed…wow.

Our new hats!

Gargoyles!!

I love you Ben. 🙂

Beautiful cobblestone streets and romantic lanterns…sigh

The Louvre

Cass outside the Louvre…it is gorgeous!

Cassie dancing in the streets of Paree!

This is all that remains of our lovely picture…

Me and Ben getting our picture drawn in Montemarte

What I’ve Been Reading

I have a new best friend.  And I have to tell you, he has changed my life.  Ben wouldn’t normally encourage a relationship with another man, but he keeps bringing him up and asking me to spend more time with him.  I guess he must be a good influence on me.  I don’t know for sure, but you may have heard of him, his name is Jamie Oliver.

Yep, that’s right Jamie Oliver, the world-famous British chef.  My friend Alice lent me his cookbook Ministry of Food for the last few months, and let me tell you, it has been amazing.  I have always loved to bake, but I have always done the bare minimum when it comes to cooking.  I just never felt confident with it, and didn’t really know what I was doing.  That is slowly changing as the weeks go by.

I have read and used a lot of cookbooks but this one is by far the very best.  At least it is for a new cook.  I know that is a bold claim, but I am telling you, it is amazing.  I actually read the cookbook.  You know, like an actual book from beginning to end.  Who does that?  I suppose more people would read entire cookbooks if they were as helpful as this one.  I literally feel like I have a friend in the kitchen who is helping me the whole time.  Incredible.

The whole point of the cookbook is to teach people who haven’t cooked how to do it, and how to do it well.  The book starts off going through kitchen gadgets; what you need and what you don’t need, as well as which items to buy as cheaply as possible and which ones to really splurge on.  So helpful.  Then he spends two pages going over what a cook should always have in their kitchen.  This has been indispensable.  I think the problem with a lot of cookbooks is that they use 30 ingredients, half of which you’ve never heard of.  Not the case with Jamie (minus the obvious British foods that I am learning along the way).  He uses every day ingredients and doesn’t insist on every item being organic or fresh (though it is loosely encouraged).  I am able to pick up his cookbook far more often and just pick something to cook which is so nice.  Normally I have to choose something to cook, then go to the store and spend too much money on one dinner’s worth of ingredients.  I love this book.

Then he dives into recipes.  He breaks down everything and the thing I love more than just about anything, is that he shows you how to do each step.  Literally, there is a small photo for each step.  I am a visual learner to the extreme, and this has made such a huge difference for me.  I now know how things are supposed to look at the various stages.  I could go on about the benefits of this cookbook, but my point is that I am learning to cook and I am thrilled!  I have started adding a new recipe or two every week and we are starting to actually really enjoy our meals.  For the first time, I actually look forward to cooking dinner.  Who would have thought it possible?!

London with the Girls!

I have delightful British friend named Hannah who is engaged to be married.  After Prince William and Kate’s wedding in a few weeks, hers will be my first non-royal wedding…though they got engaged at the Queen’s tea at Buckingham Palace, so that is practically royalty right?  Well, unfortunately Hannah’s fiance is currently out of the country for the next few weeks.  This is unfortunate for her…and wonderful for me, as it meant a girls night in London this past weekend!  Being the good friend that I am, I felt that I should help ensure that she didn’t miss Ash (her fiance) too much for at least one day.  I think we managed quite well.  Between French cafes, cakes of all kinds, YouTube comedians, fresh tea leaves, shopping, and talking we were able to distract her from missing her beloved too much.

We decided to visit one of Hannah’s close friends, also named Hannah, who lives in Clapham which is a suburb of London.  We boarded a train for London and then wound our way through the city on the underground.  There was a rugby match that day and several of the subway lines were shut down, so needless to say, it took a bit longer to get to Clapham than we had originally intended.  When we finally got there, Hannah was there to greet us.  It was a beautiful day so after dropping off our bags at Hannah’s place, we decided to stroll through Clapham Common which is an enormous park that was filled with couples lounging on benches and children running every which way. 

The day was absolutely perfect.  We ate lunch at this adorable French cafe that had the best quiche I have ever had.  It just melted in your mouth.  Ummm. In the afternoon, we strolled through the little shops that are near Hannah’s house and rummaged through a couple antique stores.  Amazingly, the antique stores didn’t smell musty like the ones in the states.  Not sure why that’s the case…but it made it a more pleasant experience!  The streets were bustling with street vendors and children on scooters.  It just felt alive. 

When asked what I wanted to do while we were there, I made only one request.  I wanted scones and clotted cream.  The Hannah’s were wonderful as they scoured Clapham trying to fulfill my one request.  It was funny how many places we found with no scones (but every other kind of cakes) or scones but no clotted cream.  We finally settled on a cute little shop called Crumpet.  Hannah treated us to afternoon tea (made with tea leaves as Hannah is crazy about tea leaves) and each of us splurged on a dessert.  We had brownies, carrot cake, and scones.  I truly believe afternoon tea is one of the best ways to spend an afternoon.  It doesn’t get much better than that.

There are tons of great restaurants that are literally on either side of Hannah’s flat, but we decided that we would stay in and cook dinner and then go out later for dessert or something if we felt like it.  The Hannah’s decided on risotto since I had never had it, and so we headed to the store to pick up the necessary ingredients.  As the Hannah’s selected all the healthy vegetables that we would be eating…I stocked up on chocolate and popcorn.  You need a balanced meal right?  Half healthy, half junk food…sounds about right. 

Hannah cooked for us while we lounged in the living room and chatted.  Well, I lounged…Hannah helped iron the bedding that had been hang drying.  Yep, Hannah likes to iron her bedding…she is a friend after my mother’s heart!  I have to say, Hannah’s flat is great.  It lets in lots of light and just feels so inviting.  I loved it.  We spent most of the night sitting around laughing, dancing, and just talking.  We had a great time comparing American and British comedians…naturally both sides were pretty biased.  We went out for a bit that night but what stands out in my mind was just sitting on the couch, me, eating a disproportionate amount of the chocolate, going through each other’s Facebook photos, and just enjoying each other’s company.  We spent the night giggling like girls do and somewhere around 3 am the laughter slowly died away as we fell asleep.   

The next morning we quickly got ready and then headed out to an American diner for breakfast…YEAH!!  It was fun to see a British version of an American diner.  They did a decent job though the biggest disappointment was not having thin, crispy bacon.  Sigh.  It looks like I will never get it while I am here.  Aside from that though, they did a pretty good job.  I had pancakes, eggs, bacon, and orange juice.  I do have to mention though, that part of my pancakes and practically all of Hannah’s were uncooked.  Now, that has never happened to me in America.  I don’t drink coffee, but the Hannah’s were excited about the unlimited coffee from those silver pots.  It was pretty funny since they never actually received a refill!  Overall though, I was very happy with my breakfast.  Especially the orange juice…that was good stuff!

I had such a great time getting to know the more local side of London.  You know, where people actually live!  No one was walking around with maps and backpacks.  It was couples, families, and friends out enjoying the rare London sunshine.  I can’t wait for another London weekend with my two favorite Hannahs!

The Hannah’s posing in front of one of the street vendors for me!

 

Crumpet wins our service with the scones!

Me and the Hannah from Clapham

 

Me (being spastic) and the Cambridge Hannah

 

 

Yummy afternoon treats...and LOTS of tea!

Is this a children's cart? Nope, it is just British.

me eating Risotto for the first time...so good!

The Hannah's lounging and chatting

 

The Hannah's laughing as usual!

Things I Am Suprised I Love About Cambridge #3

I suppose this next love of Cambridge is not actually unique to the city, however, this is where I discovered it and this is my blog, so I am going to go ahead and count it!  You may surprised to know that the third thing I love here in Cambridge is…ketchup. 

Yes, you heard me right, I love the ketchup.  It comes in the same bottle/packet that it comes in the US (Heinz of course) but it is oh so different.  One thing to note here is that I actually dislike ketchup on anything other than fries, and that hasn’t changed.  I don’t love it that much…yet!  Now I am sure you are wondering what makes the ketchup here so special?  Well it quite simply is this; it is sweeter here.  The sweetness of the ketchup is the perfect complement to salty fries, or chips as they call them here.  I can’t get enough of it!  I don’t really like McDonald’s all that much, but if it means that I can eat some fries and sweet ketchup…I am in!  Don’t believe it’s that good?  Well then I guess you will just have to come see for yourself.