So much to do. So little time.
Sometimes, art class was just walking around neighborhoods to look at the architectural style of certain periods. It's amazing how France can be one big history book.
The day after the cemetery visit, we had a pastry scavenger hunt for the UF class.
Ummm awesome. *Barney Stinson voice*
We were all put into pairs, given the address of a pâtisserie (which was accessible by metro), and given euros to cover the cost.
Yes, you heard that right.
Free money (not really considering how God awful expensive this program was).
The assignment?
All of us bought a pastry, filled out a worksheet about our interaction with the workers (en français) and took our pastries back to the API center.
Our professor gave each group a specific amount of euros based on how expensive their pâtisserie is.
Lesleigh and I had one of the fanciest in Paris: Ladurée. (Some of the pastries from there come in cuter boxes than most Christmas presents. Not to mention Ladurée's bags put most gift bags to shame.)
Together, we got 25 euros to spend for each of us to buy a pastry.
I decided to get one of the most expensive items I could find.
Naturally.
It's called a fraisier.
And it was a hit.
We shared all of the pastries back at the center, and the strawberry-filled amazingness was a favorite.
But before everyone came back there was the waiting process. I was about to go straight for my pastry before I found out we were splitting all of them.
It was hard not to dive into that beautiful dessert.
The day after that, we visited different neighborhoods in Paris to contrast them for the UF class.
Some had many families, lots of traffic, lots of culture.
There was one called—actually, the name escapes me. And I can't remember if we ended up seeing it that day or the next week.
It had a lot of immigrants from Asia, Africa and the Maghreb.
The people weren't all that polite. It was a bit too foreign. A bit too sketchy.
Not everyone was feeling it.
It was my favorite quartier.
I love the whole heterogeneous, motley crew feel you get when surrounded by different cultures all unified under bleu, blanc et rouge.
And think about it.
Imagine all the different food.
Errr, if only I had time to get my foodie on.
Speaking of food, our last class for that week ended with a trip to the market.
Ummm awesome.
That was the UF class. As you've noticed, the course was all about making observations, which we got to do in the flesh.
We browsed through the items for sale at Marché d'Aligre.
All the fruit, the scarves, the books, the fruit.
THE FRUIT.
Ahh, I could make a whole post about how much better the fruit is over there. Like, really.
I'll save that for another time. Just know I bought two little boxes of strawberries and put them in my backpack for later.
The market took over a little section in the quartier. Jasmin and I walked around the market area and found the boulangerie I spotted earlier.
She got bread. And I got my hands on a pain chocolat.
Finally crossed that off the list!
You see, my oldest sister gave me a list of pastries to try in France and I was epically failing at trying any of them until then.
A pain chocolat is basically like a croissant with chocolate.
So you can't go wrong.
Anyways, after the market, I went with some of the group to...
Well, you'll find out in the next post.
It was very...
It was something else.
P.S.
If you ever end up in France, here's Janelle's list!
Baba au rhum
Chausson aux pommes
Macaron
Tarte au citron
Paris Brest
Pain chocolat
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