Paris

At the beginning of July, I flew to Paris to visit my boyfriend, Julien.  I’d been to Paris once before while studying abroad during college, but I was excited to return and see the more local side of the city.

Jour 1

J lives in the 9ème arrondissement, in an incredibly trendy up-and-coming little neighborhood called South of Pigalle (also known as SoPi, in true hipster fashion) that, with its many contemporary restaurants, bars, and cafés, is often compared to New York’s Williamsburg. We stopped on our way from the airport – much to my complete and unabashed delight to be doing something so quintessentially “Parisian” – to buy a baguette from the boulangerie across the street from J’s apartment.

After dropping off my luggage, we headed back out to explore the neighborhood.  My favorite way to travel and to get to know a city is to taste its cuisine. Food is so evocative of emotion and tradition, and tasting another culture’s cuisine can somehow viscerally convey the raw essence of that culture far more compellingly than nearly any other medium.  In keeping with this philosophy, we stopped for a quick apéro at a little café near J’s apartment, then meandered around the neighborhood for a bit, pausing to make a dinner reservation for later that evening. We popped into a wine shop for a bottle of rosé and made our way back to the apartment to watch the sun set over Paris from J’s rooftop.

The view from his roof is incredible. I think I could have spent all of my time in Paris on that roof and never have grown tired of the view; you can see the Eiffel tower to the south, Sacré-Cœur in the north, and nearly all the rest of Paris in between. The sun doesn’t set in Paris until nearly 10pm in the summer, so the afternoon light lingered in the evening sky, casting a beautiful glow over the city.

  

For dinner our first night, we ate at Le Pantruche, a modern French bistro very near J’s apartment on rue Victor Massé.  The menu changes daily, and is written on a chalkboard propped up in the dining room.  The interior of the restaurant is almost entirely wood and mirrors, and has a definite charm to it.

Beginnings

Welcome! This is my first time blogging in awhile, so please bear with me while I get my blogging chops back. I kept a blog while I lived in Firenze (you can check it out here), but I wanted a new space to write about and photograph my life post-Italy.  I’ve procrastinated publishing l’Acquolina in Bocca for some time, simply because I tend to be something of  – okay, a huge perfectionist, and I haven’t wanted to post anything until I had entirely decided how I was going to focus the blog. I only just resigned myself to the fact that this is going to be a work in progress. I think the important thing is simply to start writing, and hopefully the rest will follow.