the one where there's no gosh darn pictures of michelle.

[check out the hand for the knocker. i keep seeing those and am officially hooked. on phonics. no really though, i'm getting one of those hands on my future door.]

it's official, i fail as meesh du jour.

i can't even keep up with myself every day.

but i'm working on it. and one of these days [hopefully. yeah!] i'll whip them all out like pancakes...[??].

moving on.

me and sam woke up super early because we had planned on watching the sunrise and taking pictures since it was so beautiful, but of course, when the alarm went off, i chickened out. and by chickened out, i mean it took everything in me to not chuck the alarm out the window because homegirl was tiiiiiired.

but i did manage to snap a couple shots as i passed out again on the bed.

[these clouds were soooo pink and perfect, how could i not snatch this memory up?]

then we had breakfast. i don't normally post pictures of the breakfast because it was pretty much the same thing every day because we were in hotels. i'd have a piece of french bread with the most delicious butter [correction: heaven spread] and a yogurt [even the yogurt is better over here] and sometimes a croissant. 

[at one hotel, the croissants were literally hot from the oven and were the most delicious thing i have ever eaten. seriously, they're reason enough to marry a random really good french cook, even if i can't pronounce his first or last name. the only words we need to share are "hot croissants, NOW." and also "not tonight" but that's another story for not another time...]

one funny story is that the lady that owns the hotel came up to us and asked us where we were from and what we were studying in school. she looked at my friend sam, who didn't understand what the lady was asking, so i told her, and sam goes "OHHHH.....je ne sais pas." which means, i don't know, since she hasn't picked a major yet. maybe you had to be there.

then we took off to the caves. these were not your typical caves [because there are so many typical caves nowadays...]. it was this big hole in the ground and then the caves, so we had to climb down a ton of steps to get to them.

[pretty freakin' cool.]

after we got done there, we got into boats and had a little tour guide gondola us around [i reeeaaallly wanted him to sing to us] and speak to us in french about the caves. so in other words, i learned nothing. and we weren't allowed to take pictures down there either, sadly. it was so cool seeing all the stalactites and rocks, and was even cooler walking the 800-ish [give or take....but seriously, give.] steps all the way back up. you could say i was a little tired by the time i crawled ran to the top. good workout though!

we all went to lunch across the street at a nice little cafe-ish place, with some bombin' cuisine.

[what? another duck giblet salade? not like i had this the night before or anything....suuuurrrre, i'll just have another one. i basically have turned into a duck by now from all the duck i've eaten. so yeah, quack.]

i need to note that it was either this salad or fois gras. i didn't want to plunge into the fois gras [goose liver] by choosing it, so my friend let me try some of hers. and you're wondering if i liked it. you tell me, would you like peanut butter that tastes like raw meat/fbahkbsanl and while you eat it, you're literally thinking of the inside of a goose [never seen one, but i'm 100% positive the real thing popped into my head]? yeah, so no, i didn't quite take to it that well. okay, i almost threw up. duck giblets sounded like chocolate after that. and you better believe that's how i treated them.

after that scarring little adventure, i was blessed with this:

[in all seriousness, this was soooo yummy. the meat was pork, and that little circle thing was made out of potatoes, and taking a bite with a piece from both=my personal turkish delight [i know that's a dessert, and i'm not even in turkey, but it just seems to fit in this context. and duhhh, the bread was amazing.]

then dessert:

[this nut tart was everything that it should be. i literally had to keep myself from picking that baby up and shoving it in my mouth. and licking the crumbs off the plate. and doing the same to all the other plates around me. and then going in the back to the kitchen and finishing the rest of whatever left. so yeah, it was good.]

after lunch, we got on the bus and took off for figac, where we proceeded to go to the most boring museum OF MY LIFE. i think it was about how language first started and the rosetta stone, but i fell asleep a few times in there and woke up crying that i was still stuck in there. not really, but seriously. it was torture. i would've paid to be airlifted out of that place, it was that bad. anyways, i took this picture.

[note to all: this is NOT the real rosetta stone. do not get all excited and wowed up like some people might have done, because it's just a fake. why they'd ever put a fake in the rosetta stone museum, i'll never know....] 

after the museum of horror, we took off to our hotel and relaxed for a couple hours [more like tried to not throw things at the wall because the dumb internet network kept kicking me off and not sam] and then went to dinner with the whole group afterwards.

[random, but we came across this door as we were walking to dinner, and of course i fell in love! this color is so stinkin' adorable.]

the place we went to dinner at was called la puce a l'oreille. it was the best. like, life-changing good. as in, what's-my-name-again-i-totally-forgot-because-this-food-is-so-freakin-good good. let me just show you.

[okay, gonna be honest, this was not good. that orange fluff is basically carrot-flavored whipped cream. yeah...but not in a good way. in a "wait, is this throw-up?" way. and that cube on a stick, is none other than the famous pâté, which we already know michelle doesn't like. at all. hence why it's untouched.] 

[now here's some food that knows how to party. this was a puff pastry with goat cheese and tomatoes on the inside. i'm sure you can imagine the look on my face when they explained what this was. it basically was the nut tart all over again.]

[everyone, i want you all to give me a standing ovation because that there on my plate is fish. and i ate it. all. but only because it tasted like black cod, which i love, and had this vegetable puree over it that tasted like curry. also, the steamed veggies were amazing. that little cube of cheese quiche was.....left on my plate. not the best cube i've ever tasted.]

[raspberry mousse and ice cream, with a really tart raspberry syrup, with a sugar-y cracker. i really loved 
the contrast of the textures and the taste of the bitter with the sweet. in other words, YUM.]


after dinner, me and a couple other people [mainly girls, but we did have the director's two sons with us.] somehow got lost from the group and were trying to find our way back and these creeper guys start walking toward us and all us girls just start saying "henry?.....henry?" to make sure he was gonna go beat them up, right? and he goes "alright, i'll be the buffer, but that's it!" and made us all laugh. eventually we found our way back and all was well, but it was alittle creepy for a bit.


well, i plan on going running in the morning along the seine [yeah, we'll see about that one michelle], so i best be getting to bed. also, i know that i'm in absolutely none of the pictures in this post on account of the fact that it was just one of those days and i, how you say....looked like a fat lard in all of them. so you can just enjoy the food and we'll call it even. everybody fast and pray that i can actually get my butt out of bed in the morning...i'll just pray...