The Whimsical World of Carson A. Byrd: We'll Always Have Paris

I have so much to tell you and so little free time to do it in. I'm going to divide Paris and Cairo into two separate blogs and hopefullyyyy i will have the Cairo photos up sometime this weekend for everyone, cross your fingers.

Firstly, i do want to remind everyone that this up coming weekend I will be helping with the Prophetik fashion show on February 19th AND they are dressing me so I very much hope that I will be able to keep the clothes! The 19th is solely devoted to organic/natural design lines and kicks off the green theme of London Fashion Week this year. Also, now that Alexander McQueen has recently died, I'm sure that the entire week will be much more somber because he was a London designer and really out London on the map as far as couture clothing is concerned.

Now....PARIS.
The great love of my life. Most people think that Paris is overrated, but I love it so so much! The frivolity, the romance, the pastries, the clothes, the art; its great.
Azzurra and I trained friday morning into Paris from London, a very glamorous and effortless way to travel if I don't say so myself. We met Chelsea, who trained in from Switzerland and who had never been to Paris before. We were determined to show her all of the beauty of the city in the short 24 hour stay that we had there. On Sunday morning we would leave for Cairo and she for Athens, so we had to be back Saturday evening in time to unpack, repack, and sleep for a few minutes.

Upon our arrival, we checked into our quaint and CHEAP hotel in the Latin Quarter, the young vibrant area in Paris known for its late late night life. It was sunny and warm that day, so we bought our underground two day pass and made our way toward the Champs Elysees but took a quick detour at the Musee de L'Orangerie to see The Lily Pad series by Monet, the most beautiful art exhibit in the world as far as I am concerned. I know everyone is familiar with Monet's Waterlily paintings, but what makes the exhibit even more amazing is the way the art is presented. Monet painted each of the eight pieces to the exact specifications of the two featured rooms in the museum. The two rooms are stark white with curved walls that form an oval with one large skylight in the center of the room. In each room, four of his paintings are curved to perfectly fit the space. It is breathtaking!

There, Britt met up with us. He was with his friend from the University of Michigan who is studying in Paris for the semester. From there we wandered down the Champs Elysees looking at the beautiful L'Arc de Triomphe and arrived at my favorite place in the entire world: Laduree.

There are a few Laduree's spread throughout the world and one is here in London, BUT the original is located on the Champs Elysees and we stopped in for afternoon tea.
Laduree is the original tea room of Europe and serves every delightful pastry, tea, chocolate etc you can imagine, but what they are most famous for, aside from the beautifully frivolous pastel color palettes, are their macaroons. I DIE. Macaroons are delicate cookie like pastries with two circular cakes with a creme filling. They come in a variety of flavors and my all time favorite is Pistachio. YUM YUM YUM!
They are so dainty and cute and sugary and perfect for a sweet tooth like myself. Also, Chelsea had this amazing hot chocolate and I'm pretty sure they melted a really great chocolate bar into a tea cup and called it a day because it was so beyond incredible! My pictures will not do justice to this most amazing place!
Next, we split from Britt and his friend as the sun was setting and headed to the top of the l'Arc de Triomphe for a few sunset pictures of the city and the Eiffel Tower. We then took the tube back to our hotel to get dressed for the evening! We dressed for Paris, as you will see and then made an executive decision to veto dinner instead for a great bottle (or two) of Champagne, after all, its Paris.
Armed with our bubbly and dressed to the nines we headed to the Eiffel Tower to watch the beautiful light show and celebrate the end of midterms and the beginning of a week of travel!
Britt met up with us at the Eiffel Tower after we had been there for an hour and we were off to begin our night on St. Michel, the "funnest" street in the Latin Quarter. It was only eleven (verrryyy early for Parisians on a friday night) so we stopped in a few really cute wine bars, that had barrels for tables before we headed to dance the night away. After the wine bars, another executive decision was made that food might be a necessity after all, if we were indeed going to hang out with the Parisians all night. SO we found a cute fondue restaurant to stop and eat before heading to a local club in the Quarter were we spent the remainder of the "morning" where we lost all track of time, as one tends to do in Paris, and emerged as the sun was coming up over the Eiffel Tower. We returned to the hotel, showered, changed into much less glamorous ensembles and marched to the nearest cafe for extra-large cappuccinos with extra foam and the largest pain au chocolates they had. After a quick bite we headed to the Notre Dame and toured what I believe to be the most exquisite Cathedral I have ever been in and then walked along the Seine just as the rain decided to drizzle. Luckily, being Londoners, the umbrellas shielded our walk to the Louvre, where Chelsea stopped to write about the architectural contrast of the building and the newer more modern glass pyramid structures for her humanities class. From there, we walked to Le Souffle, only a few blocks from the Louvre and Azzurra's grandmother's favorite restaurant in all of Paris. It is off the beaten path, put I had the most amazing lunch there!
The specialty is, of course, suffles. But not just any suffle, suffles that are so big they bubble over the sides of the dishes and are so light and creamy at the same time!
I had a spinach souffle and Azzurra had the smoked salmon and avocado. Chelsea, being Chelsea, had the french onion soup. We all split and chocolate and pistachio souffle for dessert! They cut a whole in the center and poured warmed chocolate sauce into it before we devoured the entire thing.
We then said goodbye to Chelsea as she headed for her train station in the south and us to the north station. We boarded at 3 pm and full of everything frivolous, slept the entire way to London, arriving at 5 pm, just as the sun was setting....That is how Paris is done, ladies and gentleman. It is the most magical place on earth and we had the most magical 24 hours full of great food, great friends, and beautiful aesthetics! I LOVE PARIS!