Les yeux, le nez et la bouche

Before I get into the meaning behind my post title, I want to share my day yesterday!

After sleeping until the pm- I went and met Anthony at Concorde metro station to do a little sightseeing. EVERYTHING is closed on Sundays in my neighborhood, so I suggested that we head to Le Marais (which is a primarily Jewish neighborhood) to have some lunch and just breeze around. First we went to Notre Dame, which was SO cool. I lit a candle for my sister Allison who was running a marathon in Florida yesterday. She finished it!!!! I bet it was because of my candle lighting (just joking Boo) Here are some pictures of Notre Dame







It was just so gorgeous- I'm really glad we went!

Then we walked across the Seine to Le Marais where we just got to know eachother better. Fun fact: Anthony's family owns an egg farm in Utah- they produced 28 MILLION dozens of eggs last year. It was really nice to get to know someone here- and he has such an interesting story!

After a croque monsieur and some onion gratinee, we walked to Hotel de Ville. It was really neat to see and there's an ice skating rink in front, so we watched people skate for a minute before heading to L'Arc de Triomphe.



I just knew it would be gorgeous at night, so we went around 5. You have to pay to walk underneath it (very lame) so we didn't. Then we took a stroll up the Champs Elysees to find a movie store. I bought a season of Entourage so I could watch it in bed when I go to sleep. It's great!

Today we had class at 3:30 so I woke up, ironed my uniform, unloaded the dishwasher and headed to the Saint Germaine with my friend Bruna. We ate at Les Deux Magots- I thought of you Mom the whole time, I even took a picture of it! Then we jumped on the metro to class.

It was wine pairing class today. A sommelier came in and taught us all about how to taste wine, what kind of wines go with what food, and while he did that a chef prepared a meal for us to taste with our wines. He taught us that we taste first with our eyes (les yeux) then our nose (le nez) and then with our mouth (la bouche). I liked learning HOW to taste, and what to look for with each sip. We had braised ox cheek with glazed baby onions and puree of potato and sweet potato. It was INCREDIBLE. It was so tender and delicious. I hadn't ever had ox cheek so it was a real treat. We had a yummy red wine with that and everyone was impressed that I could suck air in with my wine (thank you lots of trips up to Napa!) Then he made a mango gratin which was paired with a white dessert Bordeaux wine (which I didn't care for, so I gave it to Sara).

I just ate dinner and am off to my kitchen to practice chopping onions, I will get them perfect if it KILLS me! I just bought 12 onions so I could practice on those and carrots :)

A bientot!