Last Days in Paris

After a week in Paris, which seemed like 2 weeks we did so much, we moved down to Montpellier, which is a much slower paced beach town.

Just a recap of what I have been doing the last couple of days:

Thursday. After class, we went to one of the French Supreme Courts. The court was divided into sections, with large intricate court rooms for each division, such as criminal, commercial, family law, etc. This was the family law room I believe.

After we visited the Courts, we had dinner, which was decent but not really worth writing much about. We then walked down by the canal again, and found a little locals bar, where we talked to some french businessmen for a while. With myself, drew, kathleen, and courtney, we split a bottle of red and white wine and had desserts. I orded the chocolate torte cake, which turned out to be rich delicious.



Friday. With a short day of class, we were out in the city by noon. We browsed the shops for a while in the Hotel de Ville area, then sat down for late lunch at a this place.

To start out with, I had a cup of espresso(which is their standard coffee here), and it was phenomenal. It was rich and the coffee flavor was so good, yet it didn't have that hard acidic bite you sometimes get with espresso(or coffee) when it is brewed strong. Of course, we also had wine with our lunch. We had Chardonnay, which also turned out to be good, as it was not too heavy(as some Chardonnays will be), but still brought to the table complexity of flavors and a hint of butter on the finish.

However, the absolute star of this meal was the Penne Carbonara. This was the best dish I had in Paris, without question.

This Carbonara was authentic, with the egg yolk served on top and the hot pasta water in the bottom of the bowl. Once you crack the yolk and mix it in with the pasta, the residual heat lightly cooks the egg yolk. Combined with grated parmesan cheese served on the side, the sauce was creamy and delicious, which large pieces of perfectly cooked pancetta. I wish I could describe through words how good this pasta was, but I just can't. If I ever make it back to Paris, this is the first place I'm going. My only regret is not trying the beef tartare at this place, as I'm sure it would have been amazing.

After a little more browsing the shops, I strolled down the river and met up with everyone for a night by the Eiffel Tower. There's no better way to finish our week in Paris then lounging on the grass with 10 friends and a few(maybe more) bottles of wine. Complete with the sparkling lights on the tower, and cracking champagne at midnight, we sent off our time in Paris the right way.