Who says high school French is useless?

Have any of you ever studied another language back in high school, practiced like crazy some so-called common phrases and wondered if you were ever going to use any of them? I studied French for a few years at school and some of the phrases that fall into that category include...

Ou est le stade? = Where is the stadium?
Ou est la bibliotheque? = Where is the library?
Ou est le plage? = Where is the beach?

But one Monday morning in Paris, I finally had the opportunity to use one of my well rehearsed French phrases!
We wandered around the local area near our hotel looking for somewhere we could buy some breakfast on the go. But just when we thought we would have to skip brekkie, we saw a man walking down the street with 2 baguettes under his arm - yes, how french! This was the moment I could actually use a phrase I learnt in Yr 7!!!

So, I approached him and asked "Excusez-moi, ou est la boulangerie?" = Excuse me, where is the bakery?
The man understood me and pointed to a side street where we found a lovely little bakery - yay! Breakfast found!
So, I look forward to the next time I can bring out of the other phrases.... my french teacher would be proud..

There's the boulangerie!

Yummy treats! (ok, so it was also a patisserie)

Sweet treats

Delicious filled baguettes

Got my brekkie!

Monet Exhibition - one of my favourite artists!

How lucky to be in Paris for one of the biggest and best Monet exhibitions ever held! It was at the beautiful Grand Palais. The reserved tickets had been booked out until December so there was no choice but to get there early and start queuing! Luckily we only had to wait about an hour - had we come about 15 minutes later, it would have been a 3 hour wait! The exhibition was very popular and was incredibly crowded - nevertheless, it was worth it. There were paintings borrowed from collections from galleries around the world, from London, Norway, Texas, New York and many more, even Melbourne! So, you can imagine what an opportunity it was to see all these pieces in one place. I was able to appreciate a lot of his work - not just the famous Waterlilies pieces. Unfortunately, there was no photography allowed so I have nothing to share. It was just a beautiful exhibition....

waiting in line - still smiles!

loads of people waiting to get in

Chocolate Fair - what else to do in Paris?

On one of our nights out in Paris, we met up with one of my good friends from school, Di, who was also in Paris on holidays.
Upon hearing that Steve loves chocolate, she suggested that we go check out the Salon du Chocolat - apparently a Chocolate Fair for chocaholics. We thought... well, why not!!
The fair was held at the Porte de Versailles expo area - there were so many stalls selling a huge array of all things chocolate as well as an exhibition of clothes made of chocolates. Luckily we arrived early as it got so crowded later, we had to get the hell out of there!!! I never thought there would be so many chocaholics out there!!!
But we managed to take some photos of the cool chocolate things we saw - Steve was happy he managed an almost Willy Wonka's chocolate factory experience! Start drooling!

The anticipation...

Steve's in heaven!

Chocolate.....

Chocolate sausage

Chocolate dress

Choccie hedgehogs!

Macarons!

chocolate violin? why not...

Florist but not selling real flowers - these are all chocolates

I was tempted by this shoe purchase....

Look how crowded it got! That was when we knew it was time to go...

Our favourite Parisien restaurant experience - Ballon et Coquillages

While we were exploring the area around our hotel, we found a lovely crustacean bar - Ballon et Coquillages (translates roughly to "Balloons and Cockles"), which we knew we had to try out!
The restaurant, if you can call it that, only seats 15 people around a horseshoe shaped bar.
When we walked by earlier, we took a photo of the menu which was all in french. I studied French until Yr 10 so it was ok but when it came to specialised seafood names or crustacea for that matter, I had to resort to the internet for some translation assistance. Once we had done that, we worked out that they served some interesting things other than the usual oysters and prawns - things like whelks, cockles and teeny weeny prawns (like school prawn size but served raw). But as you know, Steve and I are up for anything foodwise so we gave it a go. It ended up being a great night as the food was delicious and we ended up having some hilarious and entertaining conversations with the other customers who were all local parisiens.
Here are the pictures of the platter we had - plate de la mer...

oysters, crab, prawns, whelks, mussels, some things that look like periwinkes....

The tiny crab - yum yum

The friendly random parisiens - they were so funny!

Check out Steve's Millefeuille dessert

After a great meal!

Front of the restaurant - cute or what?!

 In case you ever want to check it out yourself....Ballon et Coquillages Restaurant. 71, boulevard Gouvion St-Cyr, Paris

Bastille Farmers' Markets

We headed to Bastille markets on a crisp Sunday morning - Bastille is one of the best open air farmers markets in Paris. It's not huge but there's plenty of beautiful produce for sale - you can really tell the French are serious about food. There were lots of locals there buying ingredients which made me wish I stayed somewhere that had a kitchen. When I saw all the amazingly fresh ingredients, all I wanted to do was do some chopping and fire up the gas to cook up a storm!
As we wandered through, we nibbled on some fresh figs which were so sweet, some raspberries, as well as an apple pie for Steve and a baguette fromage (cheese) for me.. All super delicious!
Lots of interesting seafood on offer, loads of beautiful cheeses, succulent game meats, colourful fruits and vegies.
Here are some photos of these beautiful markets which you must visit if you are ever in Paris.

Me at the markets!

Loads of fresh shellfish

Unshucked local oysters

The figs and raspberries that we bought and munched on

Fresh flowers

Lots of variety of whole fish

So many types of mushrooms

Locals shopping the markets

Sea urchin, cockles and oysters

Fresh fruits

How cute! Little parisien girl having a chit-hat with a roast chicken vendor - a little gourmand already!

A gorgeous Autumn in Paris

It's my second visit to Paris. The first time, also with Steve, was in 2001. It was a very different visit as we spent most of the time rushing between all the tourist spots. This time we had a bit more time to explore more districts like Bastille/Marais and also along the Seine. Here are some of my favourite shots around Paris.