Catching Up: the BF in Paris

It has been a crazy month since my last post, so I am going to try to catch you up weekend by weekend, hopefully bringing you all on a virtual tour of my amazing months of March and April.

.... starting with Freddy's visit to Paris and our weekend in Barcelona!

As I may have mentioned, Freddy surprised me by sending me a pdf of his flight to Paris on the day my wallet was stolen, thus completely turning my day around. Since this day in February I had been counting down the days until his visit-- you can only imagine the force of my jumping on him in Charles De Gaulle as soon as he arrived. 

We spent his first weekend in Paris (his first weekend outside of North America!!) both recovering from jet lag and at Versailles. I had never been to Versailles before as I had heard it is touristy and not worth the trip out of Paris if you only have a few days here, but our trip was definitely "worth it". 

We arrived at the chateau in the afternoon and tried to take pictures in the one-minute intervals when the sun would peek out from behind the clouds. We made a leisurely afternoon out of our little day trip, gliding through the chateau and skipping through the gardens (almost literally, on my part anyway). True to my history major nerdiness, I tried to read about the history of the place while Freddy stood in awe of the gold-gilded doors and frescoed ceilings. We took quite a few pics, including this one:

 Gotta get a mirror pic.

We spent the next couple of hours walking around admiring the gardens, munching on salami and dark chocolate (who says those two delicious things cannot make a great lunch?). Although it was still cold, the sun came out, shining low through the trees and making the statues gleam. 

The afternoon was really as peaceful as it looks in these pictures too. I would love to go back in the spring just to picnic in the gardens.

We actually didn't do any museums or even that much "touristy" stuff during the week in Paris because I had class everyday so there wasn't much free time. On Tuesday we celebrated our one year anniversary by going to a kosher Italian restaurant at Miromesnil called l'Inte Caffe, recommended by our mutual friend from high school, Grace, who has been studying in Paris since September. The pasta there was delicious! and we took the scenic route on the way to dinner, stopping by the Arc de Triomphe:

On Wednesday we took our own walking tour of Paris, crossing over to the Left Bank to check out the Jardin du Luxembourg and Rue Mouffetard. 

Glowing in one of the rare bursts of sunshine of the day.

From there, we walked down Boulevard Saint-Michel where Fred and I both bought cheap fake leather jackets. (We both wore them in Barcelona... I guess we were "that couple" wearing matching jackets...) We then headed through the Latin Quarter and stopped at a few tourist shops to indulge in tacky but fun souvenirs :) and to eat kebab! Kebab, aka Sandwich Grec, is a pita sandwich filled with meat, a few veggies, and sometimes french fries. You can find kebab places in Paris and in other European cities, in different variations. It's your non-chain fast food that's cheap, filling, and yummy. It's usually sold at places that also will make crepes and stay open late. 

Freddy with his fry-filled kebab

We spent the end of the afternoon up in Montmartre, where we checked out Moulin Rouge (Freddy didn't seem as excited about that as most of the girls I know). We went in Sacre Coeur and just enjoyed the view of Paris and the Eiffel Tower from the top of the hill.