Paris - Day of Relaxing and Specialty Shops

Saturday morning we visited a chocolate shop and a pastry shop that Carter had read about. He is the king of specialty food shops! I think it was about the 3rd chocolate shop Carter had been to since they arrived in Paris so if you need a Parisian chocolate expert, he's your man! For lunch we went to the only Vietnamese restaurant we had found (stumbled across really) that was on the same street at the restuarant we had dinner at the night before. I had a pork balls (meatballs that is) with rice paper...I got to do the wrapping myself :). It was quite tasty. Definitely recommend others checking it out.

After lunch while the rest of the gange went to the Musee D'Orsay, Carter and I went to yet another pastry shop which unfortunately for Carter didn't have the chocolates he was hunting so instead we got some fruit juices and baguette to help us prepare for our snack in the park. We checked out a nice olive oil shop nearby that had olive oils from a number of countries. It wasn't until on our way to purchase did we see that we could have sampled some to make our selection. The lady in the shop to demonstrate that a fruity taste was not good would do a coughing/gagging motion...it was quite amusing. So after Carter made his selection, we found a park where we enjoyed our pastries (from the shop that morning), juices, olive oil and bread.

It was a perfect day and the park was full of groups of young 20-somethings hanging out. It made me realize that such a social scene does not happen in most U.S. cities as everyone has their own backyards where they gather with their friends. And when they do go to parks, it is to do an activity, not just to lounge and socialize. I think it is a nice social interaction that most Americans are missing out on and it would be lovely if we could find a way to get them out.

So, I was really bad about noting names of places we visited, but I will update this post as I figure them out.