3 American Girls in Paris! (Lindsey comes to Visit)

Near the end of our time in Paris one of Erin's best friends, Lindsey, came to visit!  She had never been to Paris before, so we were excited to show off our newly acquired Paris knowledge and play tour guides for her!  Her flight arrived in the afternoon Paris time and she wanted to stay up and adjust to the time change.  So we figured the Eiffel Tower and it's beautiful sparkling light show was enough motivation to get her to stay awake, so that's the first place we took her!

We got to the Tower in the late afternoon and had to pass some time, which is actually one of my favorite activities there.  Sitting in the grass by the Eiffel Tower with some French beers and baguettes, yes please!  I think Lindsey was enjoying France so far :)

We walked around a bit too.  While exploring we saw this awesome monument at the end of the gardens that had a huge glass wall and pillars with "peace" written in all different languages all over it.

We also stopped by the life size replica of the Statue of Liberty flame just down the river.  Before long it was about time for it to get dark so we headed back to get a good spot to watch the pretty lights!

The lights starting to come on

Lindsey got a chocolate crepe and it was so chocolaty we could only take a few bites each!  Literally overflowing with chocolate.  Yummy but a little much! (We told her about the sucre fleur d'oranger in the park and told her she had to try that one too) 

  

Pretty soon the sparkles came on and we marveled at the beautiful light show.  Lindsey was impressed and decided it was worth staying up for!

Here's a short video if you've never seen the Eiffel Tower sparkle! (though it's better in person!)

We also went over to see the big carousel by the Eiffel Tower which Lindsey actually covertly climbed up into to get a picture of the tower from inside the carousel.  Such a rebel ;)

The next day Lindsey took us out for a fancy three course meal at a great French restaurant.  Erin and I don't eat at fancy places very often as we're trying to keep this whole thing affordable but Lindsey kindly took us out to this wonderful place that her friend had found while scouring the travel boards online for recommendations.  We would like to give Lindsey a big THANK YOU! again for this treat, and also thanks to her friend Julie for finding such a great restaurant!

  

It was fun and fancy but not over the top, with a family run feel and cute little touches like the hand written (in french of course) menu board and even a visit from the owners puppy at one point!

Erin pretty much knew what she wanted to order before we got there (we peeked at an online menu)  and I decided I wanted to try something I'd never had before (duck!) and Lindsey was super adventurous and just let the restaurant manager (maybe owner? they seemed like a family and we had several different people come over throughout the meal) lady choose her meal for her!  It was super fun because we were always wondering what Lindsey was going to get next!  It payed off though, the lady had excellent taste and all of Lindsey's food (all of all the food really) was delicious!

Here's a rundown of our yummy meal:
Erin and I got french onion soup to start with and lindsey got this yummy savory pastry appetizer (I don't know what it's called they didn't even tell us what exactly her food was when it came out) that was filled with cheese and I think some eggplant and other vegetables if I remember correctly!  Both things were wonderful!

Next came the main courses.  Mine was duck in a honey sauce, Lindsey also got duck, but hers had a berry sauce that was also super tasty, and Erin got a french classic, beef bourguignon which I have to say was a favorite around the table!  side note: I looked up a recipe for beef bourguignon and it involves pouring a whole bottle of red wine in with the roast.  We decided that when Erin and I get back to the US we're going to go to Lindsey's house and make beef bourguignon and creme brulee and reminisce about Paris :)

For dessert we each got something different (Lindsey's being a surprise again).  I got the "tart of the day" which was apple, Erin got creme brulee (which would have been my choice if she hadn't already decided and we wanted to try something different s well.) and Lindsey wound up with a delicious brownie sundae situation that was again very good.  The winner of the desserts was the creme brulee though, it was oh so yummy!  We're looking forward to attempting to recreate this meal at home with Lindsey when we get back, all I need to find is a chef's torch (or even a regular blow torch, what the heck) to make that crispy creme brulee top!

On our way home we walked passed the Montparnasse cemetery and saw this little gem from over the wall. I would love to know if this is actually the family name or if there is an interesting story behind it!