Paris Day Three: The Louvre and Chartier

Yes, the weather was that grey today!

*WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS PARTIAL NUDITY* 

Musée du Louvre is one of the world's largest museums and the most visited art museum in the world. Today, it was certainly a crazily busy day with streams of tourists (mostly Chinese it seemed). 

The negatives:

• The Louvre is absolutely ginormous and is pretty much a giant maze. We did manage to navigate ourselves round, but it was certainly a trek, as my legs got so tired - far more tiring than climbing the Eiffel Tower! 
• The crowds in front of the Mona Lisa were ridiculous! Everyone was pushing and shoving to get a snap of the famous painting. There was a total of 6 "body"-guards in front of the painting and they were very vigilant with anyone who would act out of order.

• We went to the Galeries Lafayette, which I thought was pretty boring. It was the same as every other big department store regardless of whatever city in the world you are. The ceiling was quite cool though. Afterwards, we went to H&M (again, but a different one), but yet again, I didn't manage to find anything I fancied. 

The positives: 

• I'm not really an appreciator of fine arts, but there were some cool paintings, statues, ornaments, furniture etc and I did enjoy the museum, despite what my feet were telling my brain.

Tehehe

Venus de Milo

The metro station...

• Yesterday, by chance, we stumbled across this really busy restaurant with a queue to get in that went around the corner of the street. Luckily there was no queue today, so we decided to go inside for a meal. We were pleasantly surprised as our meal was delicious (One steak, lamb and sea bream). Turns out Boullion Chartier used to be a soup kitchen or broullion over 100 years ago, but now is a restaurant that is popular amoung both native Parisians and tourists. Lots of the original decor has been retained - there are lots of little draws where regulars used to store their napkins and there were also racks on top of your head to put your coat and bags. Service is very speedy and the entire restaurant was packed to the point of having to share tables with others. My favourite aspect of the restaurant though, was that they would scribble the bill onto the paper table cloth, and work it out using some speedy mental arithmetic - a nice personal touch to a fantastic meal. 

That was my day today, how was yours?

Bye!

Rebecca x

Day of in the life of a stereotypical female

As I was mentally planning out this post about my day today, I realised that it conformed to the oldest gender stereotypes - I spent the day cooking and shopping (I'm afraid I don't clean). I spent the day with MP, and we went into town shopping and afterwards decided to cook dinner for my rents.

Shopping:

The leggings and a closeup of my crotch. I still need to work out how this camera works... though thought I may as well include it. Made it black and white to make it seem "artistic".

Ah, I love shopping. My main aim was to find a prom dress, but I was quickly sidetracked. I bought this pair of stripey leggings (first mentioned wanting them in this post) at last! They are literally everywhere on the high street, seeing as most shops all seem to carry the same stock. I got these from this shop called "Hype", which from the outside looks terrible, but has turned out to be where I seem to spend most of my money! It has a load of the same stock as more expensive shops, but for really low prices (nothing is more than £10) and they change their stock really regularly, so everytime I go there, after some digging, I find something new and awesome. This has also taught me to buy anything I see that catches my eye, as it will probably be gone the next time I go. Apart from these leggings being slightly too big since they are size 10 and the fact that they are more white than black, they are pretty much perfect. I especially like the thick polyester material, instead of thin cotton as I can wear them as trousers without fear of the dreaded camel toe. Also, they were only 7 squid. 

I'm not 100% sure why I bought this dress; it makes me look like a crazy dark gypsy/hippy lady, but I love it. I have decided that I am going to attempt to make my dress sense more out there and interesting over the course of this year, instead of conforming to the bland, boring attire of the masses. Therefore, I thought I might as well jump in the deep end with this tie-dye dress. It was only £7 from New Look in the sale and it looks good hitched up so it looks like a short dress as well. 

It's good to know that it is still possible to find some great bargains on the high street, if you search hard enough and know what you are looking for. One sad thing is that, however, it is becoming increasingly vacant, as more and more shops fall into administration. 

Here is a little crop top that I really wanted to buy from Topshop but I ended up not picking it up, although now I slightly regret it. It literally screams out for me to buy it, but when I tried it on, the size 8 was slightly too big. Now I kinda really want it, since I have a £20 Topshop voucher, but I do think that £12 is extortionate for half a top... But I can imagine so many awesome outfits with it. Oh what a predicament!

1st outfit has a 90s grunge vibe. Crop top would be worn under the checked shirt, which  would be unbuttoned, but tied at the waist. 2nd outfit would have the crop top underneath the sheer black over sized shirt, buttoned up to the top.

Cooking:
Today, I decided to make potato gratin with MP and I think it turned out pretty good. We accompanied it with this savoy cabbage and chicken stir fry, which we made up ourselves. We improvised the chicken marinade, but it turned out well. Afterwards, we realised that there was not enough veg, so we also added a rocket and various other veg salad, topped with some improvised oil and vinegar dressing. It was actually quite fun and here are a few things I realised:

• This was probably the first time I've formally cooked for my entire family. It feels good to know that you have the capability to feed a family. I just hope no one ends up with food poisoning.
• Chicken that you buy from the supermarkets is horrible. It was ridiculously fatty and oily, compared to some guinea fowl breast that we had in our fridge and decided to add to the chicken. 
• Savoy cabbage is ridiculously cheap (ours was only 50p and we only used about half of it) Overall, the meal only cost £4.20 for 4 people, so I think that is pretty darn good. 

So yes, that was my day. I hope not all the other day's post in my BEDIE are not as mundane as this one. I didn't really know what to write about. Sorry.

Here are some of the things I want to achieve over Easter (carrying on from yesterday's post)

1. Start a jewellery making business
1. Wow, that makes it sound rather elaborate, but I really want to start making some of my own jewellery to sell. I have already started making lists of all the supplies I need to purchase before I can start making. It's something I've wanted to for a while now and I can't wait to get started.
2. Blog Every Day In Easter (BEDIE)
3. Go do some shopping
4. Start my revision

Good day,


Rebecca x
P.S. My dad has just bought a new Canon PowerShot G1X, which is an absolute dream to use. The interface is not particularly user friendly, but I am slowly learning how to use it. Now all I need to do is to figure out a way of taking pictures of myself, then I can finally start my fashion blog. Woop.

Profiteroles

Today, I decided to make profiteroles with my awesome friend MP. After the first few steps, I must admit, the choux pastry looked absolutely vile, but in the end it turned out pretty ay-okay.

The finished product!

Here is a video I made of the entire process! 

Here is Youtube video that I got the recipe from.

 
And lastly, here is a funny video about profiteroles. 

I now realise why no one ever makes profiteroles by hand. They are probably the most tedious and ridiculous things to fill with cream and dunk in chocolate - especially since ours were so diddy. Nonetheless, they tasted very yummy!

Unhello,

Rebecca x

P.S. I am uploading this post at 00.14pm, so technically I have broken my Blog Every Day in Half Term, which sucks! However, I got home at 10.30pm, and since then, I've been attempting to upload this video onto Youtube, which has decided to be a bum and keep crashing when reaching 93% uploaded. I also posted twice yesterday and I've also got another 2 planned to write later today, so please don't be too angry!