dude, where's my car?

I’ve had myself a very European couple of days. At this point, I was supposed to be in Madrid, drinking sangria and eating paella and going flamenco dancing – unfortunately, we showed up yesterday at the Orly airport only to find that our flight was cancelled due to air traffic controller strikes. The worst part was, we had already gotten through security, and they had already thrown away Sara’s favorite (read: expensive) hair gel that exceeded the 100 mL limit. We flirted with the security guy for a good 10 minutes before giving up on trying to rescue it, only to walk into the lobby and find our EasyJet flight to Madrid had been “ANNULEE/CANCELLED.”

We always figured there’d be a strike sometime (this is France, after all), but I thought it would surely be the Metro or the museums or something else equally inconveniencing but less surprising. The workers and Orly have since reached an accord, however, and we were able to move our flight/plans/hostel reservations to Saturday-Tuesday instead.

Being back for an extra 2 days sounds like a long time, but you don’t really feel like you should unpack, either.

Yesterday, as the whole world knows, was Valentine’s Day, so instead of going to Spain, Sara and Chloe and I went to this patisserie called La Petite Rose, right down the street on boulevard de Courcelles, for macarons and chocolat chaud. Sara’s obsessed with the hot chocolate in Paris and she makes a point of tasting the hot chocolate whenever we go out to a café. She thought that the stuff at La Petite Rose was better than Angelina’s (!).They even asked what percentage of dark chocolate she wanted (we were unsure – 60%? 70% even 80%? She went with the 70%). I tasted some – it seemed to me that they melted a 70% dark chocolate bar into a huge mug and added a little milk, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. She also thought that the macarons were better than Laduree, but you know, I don’t think I can tell the difference. I like them because they’re light and flavorful and perfect with a cup of espresso in the afternoon.

I would post pictures but my internet is not at all cooperating. Buenos noches!