When the cat's away, the mice will play... Quinn's back in SF this weekend so I'm in Paris all by my lonesome :-( It just means that I'll have to taste test all the patisseries in Paris so that I can drag Quinn back to the good ones!

Today was a quiet day with Quinn gone. I spent the morning cleaning/organizing the apartment and did laundry as well. I definitely take the dryers at home for granted. My clothes are still hanging on a rack to dry, and I could only do one load because there's only one drying rack.

Off for my daily walk, I headed towards school. I wanted to make sure that I could get there on my own without Quinn leading the way. I forgot to bring a map with me but just as well, I got there in one piece as I recalled the landmarks on the streets to turn - Ben & Jerry's, the Gap, flower stands, etc.

5+ miles later, I returned home for lunch and to snack on the Pierre Hermé macaroons that I picked up along the way. Unbeknownst to me, I had ordered an olive macaroon from Pierre Hermé. Olive! When I think of macaroons, I think of caramel, passion fruit, pistachio, chocolate, vanilla, and other sweet flavors but definitely not olive! I thought it might be pistachio so when I walked into the small patisserie, I said, "un macaroon vert s'il vous plaît"...big mistake. All in all, it wasn't thaaat bad, just a little surprising when I bit into the chunks of olives hidden in the macaroon filling (I'm not a big olive fan as it is). According to a brochure they handed me with my purchase, it looks like Pierre Hermé also makes macaroons with foie gras...interesting. The other macaroons I tried from Pierre Hermé (chocolate and vanilla) were quite delicious but Ladurée is still my fav.

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I took an evening stroll around my neighborhood. There's a church, St. Eustache, at the end of the street, which is currently being restored/renovated, and just around the corner, there is a street market that comes a couple days out of the week. They sell fruits, veggies, poultry, fish, and knick-knacks. The fish and poultry just sit outside on a bed of ice all day long...

I also found our neighborhood Monoprix. We've been going to one a couple of miles down the way. Monoprix has a supermarket, toiletries, clothing, housewares, and almost anything else you can think of. It reminds me of an über-mini Walmart. It's odd that on a random night of the week, I found entertainment in perusing the aisles of goodies at the Monoprix. In the food section, they sold snail shells.