The Girl Who Ate Everything

I visited Norway from February 12 to 19. Yup, that was a while ago. You'll be reading about it for...a while.

You know what I love just as much as eating? Sleeping. I'm one of those people who, if undisturbed by loud noises/responsibilities/the urge to pee, can sleep soundly until 1 p.m. My body is no longer programmed to wake up with the sun—my body runs on Internet Time. Unfortunately, Internet Time is forever.

Luckily, I know Kåre and I make a good match because he too can ignore the sun and occasionally sleep until the afternoon. And thus when I visited him in Norway, with flexible plans to eat lots of stuff and hang out with friends, we ended up allotting more time to sleep than anticipated. Not that we regret it—we got plenty done in the hours we were awake—but in case the subsequent posts about my trip make it seem like we didn't do much, there's my explanation. Sleep > food.

Oh, even though I can sleep like a dead log in bed, it's a different matter in an airplane. Airplane seats aren't built for ease of sleep, but to withstand rigorous pressure from a continuous stream of travelers' bottoms. During the 13 hours or so it took to get from New York City to Bergen by way of Frankfurt (there weren't any direct flights), with a nearly four-hour layover during which I became increasingly addicted with Angry Birds, I slept...[counts on fingers]...not much. I watched three movies (The Social Network: I think it was overhyped for me; Going the Distance: Meh; I only watched it to see Charlie Day; Easy A: The most enjoyable of the three, funnier than I expected), ate every foodstuff that came on a plastic tray or in a hermetically sealed plastic bag, and napped a smidge.

Norway below!

When we landed in Bergen, I was nervous. I couldn't tell you how many times I played the scene of seeing Kåre for the first time in my head. "WILL I SEE HIM AS SOON AS I GET THERE? OMG ARE WE GOING TO HAVE OUR FIRST KISS IN AN AIRPORT? IS THAT SOMETHING I WANT? IS IT GOING TO BE ALL LIKE SLOW-MOTION AND STUFF? BLUH BLA BLOOP BLEEPOO?" Answers to those questions: yes, he was waiting at the exit to the baggage claim; yes; didn't matter either way; nope, actually everything happened super fast; that's not English. Being excited and worrying about how things would unravel made everything unravel at warp speed.

So close, yet so...wait, nevermind, it's just far.

After about the fifth or tenth hour of cobbling together this post, I realized that writing this post was kind of dumb. Because a ginormous roundup of my favorite things from a city I only lived in for four months over four years ago when I had sub-minimal grasp of the native language doesn't make for trustworthy advice.

Yet I continued anyway, because people keep visiting Paris and sometimes these people ask for my advice or I feel compelled to foist it upon them, despite that my advice is sorely outdated. I did once write a very incomplete guide to Paris (indeed, its title was, "A very incomplete guide to Paris") back in 2007, but when I read it last week I realized not only was it incomplete, it was written so poorly that it sounded like I had poo-brain. IT HAD TO BE DESTROYED. So destroyed it, I did (and by that I mean I switched its status from "published" to "unpublished"), although I retained a few bits and incorporated them into this post.

But first, to dissuade you from reading further since I'm all about giving people low expectations, remember that stuff I said two paragraphs ago? Yeeeah, I'm writing this post based on experiences that are about four years old, from a paltry four-month stay in Paris (erm, while living with an American family, learning hardly any French along the way...guys, this family had Wi-Fi, precious Wi-Fi) while spending a semester at The American University of Paris. Also, I mostly focused on eating baked goods, desserts, and other inexpensive foodstuffs* (I don't drink alcohol and I failed to delve into cheese for some reason, gasp), which leaves out a whole lot of potential foodstuffs. But...um...what...ever...

For some trustworthy sources on where to eat in Paris not-four-years-ago from people who live and breathe Paris, check out the sites of food writers Dorie Greenspan, David Lebovitz, and Clothilde Dusoulier, who've all written recipe books about French food and/or guides on where to eat in Paris. I would blindly follow them with mouth wide open. Because they would lead me to something delicious/fatty/sweet and I want it to go right in here [points to mouth].

Please leave comments about anything here that needs updated info or is factually incorrect—I'm no expert on French food by any means, but would love to learn more. Recommendations are welcome as well! And if you have any related questions, feel free to ask—I can tack on more info to this post.

AAAAAND now it is mega-photosplodge time.