"Oh my goodness!"
That's what my aunt said when I woke them up at 10 a.m. Our first concern - had we missed breakfast? I made a call, and they assured me we had not. They jumped out of bed and began the process. Because it is a process for them to get ready in the morning. And you know, I appreciate that.
By noon, we'd had our brunch and headed for the flea market. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was fun, and we all left with a few things.
Next stop: Place des Voges. Our mission: macarons at Carette. These aren't like American macaroons. They are French, and they are a little bite of wonderful.
We didn't rush into it. We had bellinis. We had escargot. We had duck. We had sea bass. And then we went there. In a big way. It was really a chorus of "mmmm" and "yumm", and that included the couple next to us who were having the same.
And like all good things - you want to take a little home with you. We went through the line once and ordered our gift boxes. My box, I will admit, was another gift to myself.
I struck up a conversation with this beautiful French couple. Carette is his favorite macaron place. She prefers another. Lou Ann and Dottie got so excited, they passed back through the line again to get another order. On my second trip through, the French couple recommended another dessert - a Mont Blanc. She said it's very special. Very, very special.
I figured that life is short and you can never leave behind anything that is very, very special. And so I passed through the line again. By this point, the manager had had enough of us. And we left - six bags in hand. Yum was on our brain.
From there, we raced back to the hotel. We grabbed our coats and headed for a night cruise on the River Seine. And so for just over an hour, we floated through Paris. On the banks off the river we saw people with a picnic, some were dancing, and a few times, music just sort filled the air.
Before long, we were back at the hotel. And so as I packed my suitcase, we laughed about our trip and we questioned where my aunt spent all of her money. I opened one of the boxes from Carette - the Mont Blanc.
We shared that one very, very special dessert. It was just like our trip - very, very special.