I spent Saturday in Paris collecting various American food items and meeting up with my friend Amanda from university. The teacher of the CLIS class had asked me if I would be interested in doing an American breakfast with them after they finished their food unit, and I happily agreed. We decided on a menu of pancakes, bagels, and scrambled eggs accompanied by fresh milk (no UHT in my America), peanut butter, and the closest you can get to cream cheese, Caprice des anges. I was in charge of pancake and bagel procurement. Since I didn't want to ask the school (the small town, rather, since they are the ones responsible for paying for the elementary schools) to buy flour, sugar, baking soda, etc I decided to just buy pancake mix (my mother was horrified since she doesn't believe in using mixes). So I stopped at the Epicerie Anglaise/Irlandaise/Américaine to get some Aunt Jemima pancake mix, and then started the Great Paris Bagel Hunt of 2009. I looked up a bunch of different bagel places on Google, two of which I found to be closed, but was successful at Bagel Tom in the third and bought a dozen bagels for €10. I should have gotten more though because I keep looking at them sitting in the freezer and wanting to eat one. Oh well, I'll wait until Thursday.

I kept running into random churches on my way to meet up with Amanda, and I finally stopped in at Saint Merri, a beautiful church right behind the Pompidou. It's hidden between and behind buildings and on a very small street in that area with all the bars and restaurants.

When I finally met up with Amanda we ended up wandering around the Marais and eventually stopped at a very cute place called Page 35 by the Place des Vosges. It was service continue so we both got a formule breton for €12.90, which was a yummy galette, a yummy desert crepe, and a glass of either juice, wine, or cider. It was the best nutella crêpe I've ever had! I tend to think that crêpes are overpriced for a thin pancake filled with not enough stuff to fill you up, so I was pretty happy with the price here for two of them plus a drink, and of course the fact that it was all really tasty. If you are in the Marais definitely check this place out, they have an enormous menu and some very well priced formules. Did I mention that it was yummy?

This week should be relatively pain free: my older classes are taking tests on Monday/Tuesday while the little guys do a review and get told about American schools. Thursday/Friday we'll be making Valentine cards. A little late, but it fits nicely into the last classes before it's finally vacation!