Visiting the market today early morning was an experience. From the beginning we were welcomed with rays of the sun and the humidity. Arriving, we had met up with Professor Zinder and she started talking about this park called Square Trousseau, this park was a way to hide the placed that got destroyed by bombs. I would describe it as a great place for small kids to play around and enjoying a picnic like we did. We learned that the building around it is very famous in where one can take a picture and everyone would know where the photo was located.
Renting a living space, everyone wants the top level now but Professor Zinder had told us that before the wealthy would have the first floor and the employees would have the top floor all due to building back then not having elevators due to the fact no wealthy person wanted to go up five flight of stairs to reach their house.
We tried a croissant from the bakery, Le pain au nuturel and was told the way to identify the best is seeing. Seeing if it has a brown egg wash color and has visible layers formed. The tricky part is seeing underneath the croissant, seeing if the bottom is also brown. We as well learned that when ordering baguettes saying “puis-je avoir une bagutte traditionnelle, s’il vous plaît,” would give you a baguette that uses a sour dough base and when preparing it, it has to ensure it has the correct weight instead of the basic baguettes. Walking and eating is not very acceptable in paris but eating the end part of a baguette is the most okay of walking and eating.
When it was time for our picnic, we were giving a spread of cheeses: pavé de touraine which was a goat milk base, comté a cow milk base, ossau-iraty a sheep milk base and bleu des causses as well a spread of charcuterie: rosette de lyon which is like a salami, a rillettes de poulet rôti, duck pâte with espelette pepper, a rabbit pâte with herbs and a duck foie gras. Afterwards we were given 2 types of cherries and strawberries to the difference between them, as well got to try french breakfast radishes. Everyone had their different favorites cheese but the rillettes de poulet rôti was everybody’s favorite pâte but the freshly baked baguette won first place for everyone, we ate a total of 6 big baguettes!
Walking to our next stop for the day, we stopped at Place de la Bastille before called which was before a prison. Professor Abreu also told us that there was a latin Quarter where mostly lawyers would go but they would know the latin language. Around the Place de la Bastille the urban structure would have a roof garden on top of the roof. Our last stop was a park Place des Vosges, was made for King Henry the 6th and Victor Hugo house was located in this park, now its where people go to sun bath and get wet in the fountains.