Au revoir Paris

Goodbyes are always hard, especially when it's with one of my favorite cities. C'est la vie, non? And after a late night the city was practically a ghost town when I got up to do a bit of wandering. I made it over to Montmartre around noon, which is when the tourists seemed to have risen and were out in full force. I popped by sacre coeur as a lovely church service was happening (complete with a chorus of nuns), somehow that just made the morning more magical. After stopping by a cute little bistro and grabbing lunch, I was on my way back to Germany.

Bonne Annee Paris!

Happy new year! I wish everyone a happy, healthy, prosperous 2012. Oh what a lovely day to be in Paris. Yes it was rainy and a bit chilly, but that didn't stop us from having an amazing time. Today's adventure included the Louvre, Notre Dame, Shakespeare and co, lunch with mom's friends in the Latin quarter, shopping at printemps and the galleries Lafayette, macaroon tasting with Lauren and Greg...and finally hotfooting it across town to the Champs Élysées to celebrate with a mob of people in the streets. Paris is crazy for new years, but I can't imagine being anywhere else. Bonne Annee.

Paris day 1

Two of my most favorite things that can occur while traveling happened today. First, my dear friends Lauren and Greg met up with my mom and I at the eiffel tower. Hanging out with dear friends in foreign places is my number 1 most favorite thing in the world, period. My number 2 favorite thing is meeting new interesting friends and having interesting conversations with strangers while in foreign places. Today I met the most fantastic couple from Basque while standing in line for the L'orangerie, they told me all about the artist Zuloaga, then we discussed Balenciega scarves for a bit...limited French makes for the most interesting conversations, in this case the convo was in French, Spanish and English, and the lady was so sweet she found me in the gallery to further discuss Spanish artwork. The 2nd random meeting happened at dinner when we made friends with our Nepalese waiter. He invited us to ring in the new year with his family tomorrow, so sweet.

Ps we did many amazing things today, but the big thing was finally, after years of online shopping at Colette, I can finally say I've actually been to the store and it was exactly as magical as I envisioned it. My pocketbook may be lighter, but for once I didn't have to pay ridiculous shipping fees, so there is that.