Day 2, Part 2: Paris- Landmarks and Macarons

Versailles was such a wonderful experience. It was a long day of walking in hot weather, and I was a little sunburned... but I had tons of energy and couldn't wait to see more of Paris. I boarded the C train and planned to take it straight to the Musee d'Orsay, but once again the C train let me down. Twice in one day! So I temporarily skipped the Orsay and headed to Notre Dame Cathedral instead...
















I wanted to go up into the towers, but the line had already closed for the day. So I figured I'd get views of Paris from the Arc de Triomphe instead. But of course there was some sort of special event going on there, so I couldn't go inside. Bummer! Still got some pics, though...






And it wasn't a total loss, because then I went on a stroll down the Champs Élysées. I window shopped at Cartier and a few other places, Amadeus seriously had to fight the urge to do some real shopping. There was a line around the block to go look inside Louis Vuitton, and I wondered how much that bothers the people who actually intend to buy things there (not me). I couldn't be bothered with silly little Louis Vuitton anyway though...I had my sights set on macarons from Lauderee! I'm kind of a macaron connoisseur, and these are supposed to be the best in Paris. I happily waited in line for a half an hour, thinking to myself that the restaurant itself looks like it belongs in Versailles.





















































































































So I got 8 of these little guys. If you haven't had a macaron before, it's a little cake sandwich with a creamy or jelly filling. The cakes are crispy on the outside and moist (like cake) on the inside. The "buns" of the sandwich are about the size of a Nilla Wafer. I got (from left to right) strawberry-mint, orange blossom, pistachio, salted caramel, vanilla, coconut, raspberry, guava, and melon. So far I've tried salted caramel, guava, and raspberry and they definitely live up to the hype. Salted caramel was filled with actual caramel sauce and was sooo delicious and rich, the guava filling was a really light cream, and the raspberry filling was like a heavy sweet jam. I'm going to try to make the rest of them last as long as possible because it could be a long time before I get macarons this good again!

Ok, a final note on my trip to the Champs Élysées: tons of people were posing for photos outside of Abercrombie and Fitch. Why? I couldn't tell ya. They do it in New York City too. I mean, welcome to 2002 I guess?