My First Cafe Creme

                In 2006 I went on one of the very best vacations of my life. I went to Paris with my two best friends Mimi and Ryan. Paris was unbelievable.  Ryan and I had been staying at Mimi’s place in Mildenhall London, just outside of Cambridge for a few days.   We got up before dawn to make the two hour drive to Luton Airport to catch our Ryanair flight. It should have taken us two hours anyways, but the British like to close roads and have detours and

              “OMG WERE GOING TO MISS OUR FLIGHT!”
     
              Was our thinking as we barreled across the dark countryside. Luckily John,  Mimi’s husband drives fast and we jumped out of the car at Luton right on time, and the sun hadn’t even come up yet!


           Ryanair is like a big bus, but yet a plane. Everything is bright orange and cheap. That’s why we paid about twenty pounds for our tickets. It was actually way cheaper than taking the train, the way most people get around Europe. There are no assigned seats, and you walk across the tarmac and load onto the plane, no fancy airport or frills. That’s okay; we were saving all our money for fancy French food and delicious French wine.



 
                We landed at Charles Del Gaulle Airport in the early morning, and bought a train ticket to get us into Paris and Metro tickets to use on the Paris train system. Our first stop was Sacre Coeur at Montmartre, the highest point in Paris and an amazing view of the city for the first time visitor.  As we climbed back down the massive set of stairs some Rastafarian guys were trying to sell Ryan something and Ryan can’t stop himself from talking to people, even if they are speaking a foreign language so before we knew it Mimi and I were checking out what was going on. Then they started tying bracelets on our arms. Okay they were cute, but next thing you know they expected us to pay for them. The problem was we had just come straight from the airport and we didn’t have any Euro’s, just English pounds.

                This did not go over so well. We ended up pretty much just throwing the money at them and taking off to find a little café near Montmartre to recharge.

Don’t take pictures in the tube!

            That was when I had my first Café Crème. It was amazing. Of course I had been in England for a week at that point, home of the instant coffee, ew. All I know is café crèmes are one of the very best coffees I have ever had in my life. I drank at least five or six a day over the three nights we were in Paris. I also had my very first French meal at this little bistro and it was so good, yet very simple. Just a salad with goat cheese and some toast with goat cheese.

            Did I mention I love goat cheese? Like a lot? It just tastes like licking a fresh goat and man I love that taste.

             With that first goaty meal, I knew Paris and I were going to get along just fine!


 

Comments

  1. Mamarific

    My friend just came back from Paris and is going through coffee withdrawal. She can’t find any here that meets her newly-raised European standards. This makes me want to book a flight!

  2. Considerer

    D’ya often lick fresh goats?

    Sorry on behalf of my country, for the instant coffee. It’s appalling. You like Cafe Creme, you gotta try LavAzza. It’s Italian and totally delicious. Get the grounds 🙂

  3. Kirsten Oliphant

    I haven’t had a cafe creme but now I want one. I also don’t know how to make those little accent marks on my words, so super good job on figuring that out. A lot of times in England, they’d give me an americano instead of the instant, and that was fabulous! This brought back memories!

  4. Is Everyone an Idiot but Me?

    haha, luckily goat cheese is even better than licking a fresh goat! I have been to Paris once but was miserably sick the entire time and mustered just enough energy to see the Eiffel Tower. No delicious french food for me, just gargled a lot of betadine. But I will have to go back if only to try this cafe creme you speak of!

  5. Andrea

    I have a feeling you are too young to remember PeoplExpress (no frills) Airlines. I am not a huge fan of goat cheese, but am sure fresh goat would taste better than a stale one.

  6. Joe

    Those guys are still in Montmartre. They grabbed me and tried to put one on me two nights ago but I escaped.

  7. rarasaur

    That whole sticking-bracelts-on-people-and-then-charging-them thing is genius! I can’t see it really playing out well here in the US, though. 😀

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