We passed the Moulin Rouge, a famous cabaret and the place of the well-known musical by the same name. I'm sort of a musical geek, so it was fun to see.
Then we went to a well-known church with one of the best views in Paris.
After all that, we were sort of hungry, so we went to one of Garance's favorite crepe shops. It's run by a Japanese family (remember I said France has a pretty large Japanese population?) and everything is super cute and pink and girly and it's kind of great.
The crepe I got- chocolate cheesecake. It was so good, I was dying a little inside.
Then we went to the garden of the Museum of Evolution, not far from Garance's apartment. The garden is free to go in, so we just puttered around there for a bit.
There's also a zoo next door. You need to pay to get in but some of the exhibits cross into the garden so you can just see them. A wallaby hopped right up and looked at me and I felt like I'd been chosen.
Then we went to a gelato place down the street that's famous for making "flowers" out of their cones. It was run by an Italian guy, and it felt so good to say "buongiorno" again!
(Mango and passionfruit)
That night Garance's parents wanted to take me out to an authentic French dinner (which was very nice of them!) We went to a typical French place. They explained to me it wasn't "typical" like super-French food, but "typical" like normal French families would eat there.
Chicken with steamed vegetables (I splurged on a small glass of Bordeaux wine)
And chocolate mousse! Oh man, this mousse was so good, I thought I was going to die and go to mousse heaven.
I think, as a whole, I like Italian food better, but the French win hands-down at desserts and pastries. They just do. It's a little unfair to compare the food of the countries, though. Italy is really, really into food as a cultural identity. The French obviously are too, but nowhere near the same degree. I'd say the French use art as their main cultural identifier instead. Italians use food and churches, the French use art.
