Macaroons and a Cafe' Au Lait, S'il Vous Plait...

OK, so I could not wait to get to France because although I am very careful with my diet on a daily basis, I fully intended on having two things EVERY DAY while there:  Macaroons and Cafe' Au Lait!  And to my pleasure, at every corner one could find both.

First, let me say that Cafe' Au Lait was already a favorite of mine from visiting New Orleans, however, having a Cafe'Au Lait in France...Ooohhlala!!

 In case you don't know what a Cafe' Au Lait is, I will tell you:  It is coffee with hot, steamed milk.  YUM!

 And every time I ordered one, there was a little something different about the presentation.  That is a little meringue on the saucer.

      This one came with the steamed milk on the side .  And a little piece of chocolate on the saucer.

So you see, sipping a Cafe' Au Lait  is just the the thing to do while sitting at an outdoor cafe' in France.

Now, about the pastries...OH MY!  The French make pastries a work of art.  Seriously, I have never seen such beautiful pasties in my life!  And my favorite?  The Macaroon.  What is a macaroon, you may be asking?  Click HERE to find out just exactly what they are and some history behind them.  All I need to tell you about them is that they are DELICIOUS!

                                           See...I told you they made pastries a work of art!

 I found that these little babies come in several different sizes too:  A regular size (50 cent piece size), large ones(Moon Pie size) and then the minis.  I sorta felt a little like Goldilocks in deciding which ones I liked best, because they were all so good but you know,  I found that there is one that is "just right"...

This green macaroon was pistachio flavored and it was a large one...about the size of a moon pie.  Yep, I was a little overzealous with this one.  But, hey...it was at the beginning of the trip and I learned my lesson and only ordered the regular sized ones afterwards...

OH MY GOODNESS...And I mean GOODness!  A bit too much sugar in a big one like this but OH, SO YUMMY!

And I know what you must be wondering:  Did I bring any back with me?  Well, of course I did!  These two things were my guilty pleasure while I was in France and I do not regret having both every day because it's not every day a girl goes to France!

Join me on my next post which will be about the churches of France.  The photos for that post are phenomenal...you don't want to miss it!

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Window Shopping in France!

I believe we Americans have lost the art of "window shopping".  The Parisians, however, have it extremely fine-tuned.  As we walked the streets of Paris and Rouen I found such pleasure in just leisurely browsing the shops through their windows.  Beautiful as they were, there was another thing I appreciated about those windows:  the price tags were included on every single item displayed.
Yes, of course, everything was written in French and the price was in Euros but that was pretty easy to figure out.  That one year of French I studied in college was sufficient for understanding the items, it was fun actually, like a game.  And once I knew how much a Euro was worth I was set to shop!

I had heard from many people that the French were rude or didn't speak English or pretended not to speak English and their experience was not good in France.  I, however, choose to believe it all lies in attitude and body language.  Certainly, the French, I'm told are the most reluctant to learn English and I cannot fault them for that for a couple of good reasons:  First, I'm not really committed to learning any other language, myself AND let's face it, English is a difficult language to learn and most of the French people will never travel to the United States.  They, however, are fluent in many other European languages.  That being said, I did not encounter any store merchant or waiter who was rude.  HOWEVER...I was that enchanted American who could see nothing but beauty,  and that came out in my body language and smile that covered my face (aka:  attitude and body language).  So, now back to some of those wonderful windows I shopped while in France!

One of the first shops we popped into was a bridal shoppe in Rouen.  I know, I know, I don't have anyone else to marry off but my friend, Lori does and what girl doesn't just LOVE wedding dresses?!

These dresses were simply gorgeous.  Everything you would think a French- made bridal gown should be.  And the price?  Only around $1,200.

                                              If you think the front of this dress is beautiful...

   Just look at the back of it.  Someone I know needs to be wearing this dress on her wedding day.

A men's tuxedo is called a "costume".  And there is a price given for the entire outfit.  But look at that tie.  I wanted to get Hubby one but could not find one that was sold alone.  We were going to do that when that attacks happened so now I suppose I will attempt to find one online.

Down the street was this lovely little shoppe that had this table set for Christmas.  Talk about put one in the holiday spirit.

I passed this window in Paris and it instantly caught my attention.  I realize the photo isn't very good but I'm sure you can see enough to tell that this is a little girl's outfit, complete with a fur collared sweater, gloves and tights.  OH MY GOSH!

OK, how gorgeous is this window?!  Notice the reflection of the building in the back too...Just SO Paris!

And this window...I took home with me.  No kidding!  Hubby had been insisting that I buy a new bed set since ours was 10 years old.  We walked into the shop and got the merchant working to see if all the pieces were available.

                                                  Yep, I'm sleeping on French linens now.

I'll come back to this subject in another post, but notice the blue walls and all the cream, gold and blue details in my master bedroom.  Our house is built in the French Provincial style and the decor of this room is French all the way!  Needless to say, this was my favorite purchase from France!

Now that you've taken this little window shopping trip with me, I hope to introduce you to some of my favorite French foods in my next post!

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