Paris III

The flea market in Paris?  Pretty awesome!  One of my roommates and I went to what is considered to be the largest antiques flea market in Europe!  It's a serious maze of little corridors on the edge of Paris, and it's full of little booths.  They have furniture, clothes, jewelry, creepy dolls, art, accessories, and just about everything you can think of it.  Most of it is pretty vintage and retro, and there are some amazingly expensive treasures in there.  We wandered around while eating some Nutella and banana creeps, and I ended up with a really pretty old silk scarf.

After that, my friend and I parted ways for a bit, and I headed over to look at the Arc d'Triomph and the Champs Élysées.  It was raining off and on, so eventually I just headed back to the hostel to rest up a bit.

That night, we went to a restaurant that I'd heard of before a d really wanted to try, Chartier.  The place is a century old, and is famous for serving good French food for fairly cheaply, fairly quickly, and in a beautiful place.  The night before we'd attempted to go there and the line was down the block.  This time, it being a Sunday night, the line was shorter, and we were inside within 15 minutes.  They try to fit as many people in and as possible, so we found that we were sharing a table with another couple of people.  The waiters there either don't speak English or pretend not to, so we were pretty much on our own with the menu.  But oh my god, it was so good.  I ordered escargot, mushrooms in sauce, and green beans in sauce.  In France, the snails are cooked in their shells and served to you that way, unlike in the states where you get that funny dish with the holes in the top.  To get them out of their shell, you must use these tongs to hold onto the shell, and then use a tiny fork to dig that buttery, garlicky little delight out.  It was sooooo good!  For dessert, we decided to just feel lucky, so we pointed to two things on the menu and hoped that they would be amazing.  They were!  One was a sort of mousse cake and the other was a chocolate parfait kind of thing.  We also finished off a whole bottle of rosé.  After dinner, we wandered around Montmartre for a bit.  We ended the night at a candy stand in front of the Moulin Rouge, where we sat for a bit and ate our sour gummy Eiffel Towers.

The next morning, I had a little bit of time to go look the Notre Dame church, and wander around Les Halles.  I had a quick lunch of a crepe and an eclair, and then had to grab my stuff and head for the airport.  EasyJet, we meet again.