It looks like I will be trying to restore my body for some time after the poor (but delicious) eating choices I made while in France.  My skin is so dry from dehydrating myself on a daily basis for 6 days, and my stomach is still as hard as a rock.

Today's smoothie includes:
little bit of water
2 handfuls of organic spinach
1/2 of a frozen banana
frozen pineapple
frozen mango
very small handful of organic blueberries (saving them for tomorrow!)

If you have a Vita mix, adding greens into your smoothie is an excellent way for you to consume more nutrients as the blades chop leafy greens into a very fine liquid consistency (this helps your body to absorb more of what the leafy greens have to offer rather than chewing through a salad).  You can barely even taste the greens in your smoothie.  If you are using a regular blender, well, I have no idea how adding greens would come out!  I'm not sure if a normal blender would chop the greens into the same consistency, but it's worth a try!

Au revoir Paris

I'm back.  And all I can say is, WOW.  What a week!  The time flew and I still can't believe that we were just in Paris.
While I did miss my croissant with OJ and tea / or crepe for breakfast, it felt very good to put some healthy food back into my body - oatmeal mush with ground flax, granola, and blueberries.  Bye bye carbs and buttery goodness :(
Our experience abroad was nothing short of amazing.  We saw as much as we could in the 6 days we were there, and were also fortunate enough to have time to leave the city for a day and visit Giverny which is where Monet lived and painted.  That part of our trip was by far my favorite.  We took a train to a town called Vernon, rented some bikes, and then cycled through the beautiful countryside for about a half an hour to Giverny.  Completely breathtaking.
We ran into very few snags on our trip.  Everything went smoothly with our flight and our apartment.  We didn't get robbed.  Hooray!  (We only had a few people come up and try and con us, but we both knew better and continued walking.)  We (meaning mostly Mike) did our best we could with our limited knowledge of French; and while a few people chuckled at our attempts, mostly everyone else was very kind to speak to us in English (or what English they knew).   Bon jour, merci, and  je ne comprends pas (I don't understand) were my most commonly used phrases.
I have to say - we ran our butts of while on vacation.  I didn't realize how HUMUNGOUS Paris is and how much there really is to see.  We spent every day walking and walking and walking.  We really exhausted ourselves to the point where we could barely move our bodies by the last day.  We tried to accept the fact that we could not possibly experience everything that Paris could offer, but we kept going anyway.  I would have enjoyed more nights drinking wine on our terrace, but how could we when there were so many beautiful places to see?
Leaving Paris was sad, but I have to be honest and admit that it was nice to come home to people speaking a familiar language.  It's a little scary visiting a country where you can't read or understand people - especially in restaurants (jk!).
Our last night in Paris ended with a trip up the Eiffel Tower and then a few hours later a viewing of the tower lit up and sparkling at 11:00 pm (it still wasn't completely dark but it was beautiful!).  A great way to conclude a great week :)

Here are a few pictures from the last few days. You will see the Eiffel Tower from our river cruise, crepes with nutella, banana and coconut, the Louvre, and the lily pads and gardens where Monet was inspired to paint.

Today in pictures:
our balcony with the sun out
hills of Montmart ( we visited Sacre Crour but I don't have those pictures on my iphone)
our breakfast of croissants and bread
me underneath the Arc de Triumph
our river cruise on the Seine

We've been doing so much that I'm grtting confused with what we have seen and on what days!
Here are a few observations: the French don't hate us like everyone thinks (which we knew).
You cannot take home your leftover food from a meal.
People stand around with beer and wine bottles all over the city streets and drink in public.
The city toilets aren't as disgusting as I thought, though I'd still like to avoid them at all cost.
You can't really grab a cup of coffee to go. You sit and you drink. And waitrrs take a very long time bringing you your check- not because they forgot but because they don't want to rush you. Imagine that?

Tomorrow there is a giant music festival throughout all of Paris to celebrate summer solstice. I hope to eat cheese and bread and drink wine while listening to some tunes.

Bed time. Good night!

Random thoughts - it's not easy being a veg in Paris. While the tomato and mozzarella sandwiches are amazing, I'm not sure how many my stomach can handle. Last night for dinner we enjoyed another pre fixed meal. My appetizer was a delicious avocado salad, but my entree was literally a plate full of whatever veggies were available that day. I was so hungry from not eating all day yesterday that I really didn't mind. I guess all the salas eating will just allow more room dor my crepes and pastries and real bread!

p.s.

I am very tired and am not sure how much sense I am making. My apologies.

After a much needed shower and a change into fresh clothes after our over night flight yesterday, we took a little tour of our neighborhood, which is the Latin quarter, and eventually made our way over to Notre Dame. The weather is cloudy and cool here andunfortunately I am packed for sunny and 75 degrees. Woops. It's a little chilly but once we started walking we warmed up real quick. Anyway, Notre Dame is obviously gorgeous. I don't really think there's any other way to describe it. Pictures will be posted when I get back.Last night we meandered through the streets looking for some vegetarian food. Sadly, the two veg restaurants in my neighborhood closed down. We were lucky to find that one restaurant had a veggie pre fixe dinner which included rice with lentils, penne, and an apple tarte. The only thing edible was the rice and lentils. It's ok though.This morning we woken up at 11:00 am. The first thing we said was, "oh shit.". We lost so much of the day! We showered and went for breakfast in a little cafe in front of thepantheon. We both ordered a crepe with apple compote and coffee. Wehave definitely been struggling a bit withthe language. I think we are both afraid to use the little bit of French that we know because we sound like jerks. Maybe tomorrow we'll try harder. I think I got down, "hello. How are you? Do you speak English?" in French.After that, we walked along the Seine to Musee de Orsay which is a very cool museum that was originally a train station. We saw some paintings by Van Gogh, Cezanne, Monet, Manet, Renoir, and Seurat. More and more and more walking brought us to the Eiffel tower! The line was really long so we decided to go back another day. We did spend lots of time there taking pictures and resting our very tired feet.
There is so much more to write, but instead I'll end with some pictures of me eating my first of many chocolate croissants, the Eiffel Tower, and pictures showing you how light it is ar 10pm here.

Bonjour!

We arrived in Paris yesterday morning at 10:30. What a flight. After a mild panic attack concerning our seating, I popped some xanax and had a fairly smooth ride after that. I am not looking forward to our flight home.
Our "landlord" for the week retrieved us from the airport and told us everything we needed to know about Paris. The problem is I forgot everything except what she told us about pastry shops: if the pastries are made in house there will be a sign on the front of the shop that says something like boulangerie. Unfortunately I don't recall anything else from our conversation. I am extremely comfortable with the choixe we made to rent an apartment rather than a hotel. I love our land lady and our apartment has exceeded anyrhing I had hoped for. These are pictures from our balcony looking towards the Pantheon. How breathtaking is that?! And I can't even begin to describe how amazing the flowers smell! We are very lucky.
I have lots more to write but for now it's time a late breakfast of chocolate crepes and coffee.

Mike and I are waiting at our gate at the Miami International Airport. So far, I'm not a fan of this airport. Actually, after this trip, I hope I never have to come back to this airport. The economy parking was full...but we were able to snag one of four spots that were left. If we hadn't gotten that lucky, we would have had to pay $17 a day! Next major fail was the security of our luggage. They didn't take our luggage at the same place where we checked in which we found kind of odd. And then we noticed that people were covering their checked bags with all this crazy plastic wrap stuff. For $15 you can saran wrap your luggage for more security....who knew? And about 5 minutes ago Mike was trying to access the airport's wifi and he cant connect without paying a fee. What the hell?!? The next hour and a half are going to be verry long...

Trading in:

for pastries, history, and the eiffel tower.  Off to Paris for the next week!  Hopefully I'll be able to post a few things while I am away.  Au revoir!

Note to self : never bake a batch of ghiradelli brownies a week before vacation.

Oh yeah, Mike found a frog in his toilet last night and flushed it down the toilet.  Murderer!

No more pencils no more books....

No more STUDENTS' dirty looks!!!!  :P

Today marks the first day of SUMMER VACATION!  Hip hip hoooray!  Unfortunately, my chest is pretty gunky so rather than kicking off our two month break with a pina colada last night, I finished my zpack.  Oh boy oh boy!

Crawling out of bed at 8:40 am was pure bliss (until the 15 minutes of hacking up phlegm that congealed in my chest over night commenced).  I made some whole wheat banana pancakes, sipped some OJ, and discussed with Mike some of the flaws in our education system.  But, I won't be thinking about that long list again for a couple of weeks, hopefully.

While I could have easily lounged on the couch all day to nurse myself back to good health, Mike and I decided to run a few errands since we only have 9 days left until our trip to Paris!!  Our first stop was to Best Buy for the third time to look at camera cases.  I am very particular about what I want to carry around my dslr in while overseas.  I need enough room to hold both lenses, but I don't want to look like a total tourist with a huge sling bag on my back.  The other problem with the sling bags is that there is no hidden zipper up against my back to hold money or my phone.  All of the zippers are on the back of the bag making it way too easy for someone to snatch something from me.  You may call this paranoia, but it's not.  I was in Spain once and one of my friends was pick pocketed with three of us standing around completely unaware!  Any who, Best Buy was a bust AGAIN.

 Next we went to Kohl's because Mike had a coupon...and I'm a sucker for coupons.  I bought these bad boys.

They are definitely the type of sneakers where you either love them or you hate them.  I happen to love them.  They match almost all of the t-shirts I've bought in VS over the past two months (I'm very into all of the bright colors out there!) and they're different. While the sky blue shoelaces are pretty bold, I figured I could always switch them out with white or gray to tone them down.  What do you think?

We made our way up to another shopping center a few towns away from us which happens to be the mecca of outdoor shopping.  This place is nuts.  We had lunch at a restaurant, recommended by a friend, called Stir Crazy.  It reminded me a little of PF Chang's - kind of an Asian American infusion.  Our waitress gave us a mini wok and told us to fill it up with any vegetables we'd like and then hand it to the chef to cook right in front of us.  I filled my wok with carrots, mushrooms, onions, red cabbage, scallions, peppers, bean sprouts, pea pods, pineapple, garlic, and teriyaki sauce.  I really enjoyed picking out my own ingredients.  What I enjoyed even more was that they were fresh.  Then we watched as the chef dumped all of the veggies on a giant wok over these really huge flames, which, quite frankly, I have no idea how he didn't burn himself on them.  He added some tofu and lo mein noodles to it as well.  After a few minutes of flipping the wok our food was done.  OH MY GOODNESS it was freaking delicious!  My only regret is that I gave the chef too much teriyaki sauce to cook with so my dish was a little salty.  Other than that, it tasted so good!  Thankfully, the waitress brought us some fortune cookies to calm our tongues down from all the salt.  

I guess I won't be a teacher forever then....

Upward and onward.  Despite being too full to move, we made our way into another camera store where, thankfully, I found a camera case that suited my needs!!  It's compact  yet fits both of my lenses.  It has zippers inside of the case to store my money and phone.  And it's not as masculine looking as most camera cases are.  It actually almost looks like a purse!  Relief!

And now, friends, after my long, exhausting, hard day of "work,"  it is time to resume my position on the couch and rest.  Perhaps the funk in my chest will subside with some chapters of Game of Thrones...?

Dunkin Donuts has some balls charging 8.50 for munchkins.

My body is screaming "GO BACK TO BED!!!"  even after a solid 10 hours of sleep....I really didn't think I'd wind up sick on my last 3 days of work.  Such is life.  At least I survived my first year teaching...mostly!
12 days to get my body back in a healthy state before PARIS!  I WILL NOT go away sick!

In exactly two weeks, Mike and I will be on our way to Paris!!!  Soo much to do before then - like shop, pack, shop, and drop a few pounds so I can eat my way through France!