As all five of our followers know, I love flowers and just plants in general. Happily, so do the Parisians. At first, from a plant perspective, I was a little bummed to arrive in the winter (but the patisserie scene is thankfully not negatively impacted by the seasons, so I was okay).

In early March, there was no green in sight — lot of brown. The trees and shrubs were nowhere close to leafing-out. But looking back, it was actually really fun to be there for four weeks and watch the trees slowly start to bud, and the tulips pop up. So, this post is all about what I saw on the Paris plant scene in March.

Mimosa Shout Out

March in Paris is gray and cold. The Parisians have a solution though, and it is the mimosa (Acacia dealbata)! Bunches of this bright yellow beauty were in all the florist shops. There are close to as many florist shops as patisseries in Paris, so you’ll see happy yellow bunches everywhere you look.

Flower Markets and Shops

There are flower markets and flower shops all over Paris. My favorite market so far is the Marche aux Fleurs. It’s on the Ile de la Cite, and is between Notre-Dame Cathedral and Sainte-Chapelle Chapel, so the location is pretty neat. Even if you aren’t into plants, I’d check it out on your way to or from Notre-Dame/Sainte-Chapelle. The market is basically two long covered structures, with shops inside and out. It’s open everyday. Here’s an idea of what was in stock in early March – lots of citrus trees, iris, clematis, camellias, azaleas, tons or orchids.

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And here are a few shots from flower shops.

Favorite Gardens

Palais-Royal

Palais-Royal was one of our favorite spots in Paris. We came here everyday to walk Alice. On the weekends the garden fills up with locals playing sports or chatting under the trees, and reading by the fountain. When we first arrived in Paris the garden looked bleak . . . the fountain in the middle was empty, trees were bare. But there were some pretty hyacinths and cyclamen still blooming in the beds, and the magnolias framing the planted beds were blooming. The design of the garden is pretty, with rows of trees forming arcades along the outside and the fountain and flower beds in the center, so I had a feeling there was potential.

Then, slowly slowly this garden started to change. I became obsessive about tracking the trees leafing-out, which was super fun for Dan! Trust that I have daily photos of these trees. Here are a few shots from the end March, when things are really starting to happen.

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And more exciting for everyone else (maybe), here are some of the flowers that were blooming in the beds around the same time. I got excited because they had at least four different kinds of daffodils, and a bunch of different tulips.

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The Palais Royal, as you may have guessed, was a royal palace in the mid-1600s. Wikipedia really tells it best.

Jardin Tuileries

This place is also the best. So nice to stroll around, do some running laps that are not on concrete, and look at all the plants! They also give you a list of all the tree plantings, which is super cool.

Here is some of the pretty stuff blooming by the end of March.

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The two gardens are close to each other too! Bonus.

Honorable Mentions

The botanical garden, Jardin des Plants, in the 5th Arron. might be worth a visit. It has a zoo with wallabies! I have no idea what else is at the zoo, you can just see the wallabies without actually entering the zoo and they are cute. There is a cool greenhouse with jungly plants to check out, and some museums. Plus, there is this really cool cherry tree that must be 100 years old.

Jardin du Luxembourg is also really nice, I just didn’t get there on this trip.

Okay, back in blog action after a really wonderful week skiing in Chamonix. Apologies to all five of our loyal followers for the delay getting you this post on the most delicious viennoiserie according to moi — the chocolate pistachio escargot! Here’s a close up of the flaky, pastry-creamy goodness.

It does not have snails in it. Just shaped like one of the cute little guys. It’s a perfect combo of croissant dough, pistachio flavored pastry cream, and mini chocolate chips. If you like pistachio ice cream/gelato, you’ll love it. If not . . . I guess just feel sadness. It’s sort of like a pain aux raisin, except it’s good because there are no raisins.

I read somewhere that the best ones in Paris come from Du Pain et des Idees. I didn’t try every ECP in Paris, but Du Pain et des Idees’ are legit.

Du Pain et des Idees also has seasonal fruit escargots that I didn’t see anywhere else in the city and they looked really tasty. Try one for me!

Below is one that was not so good (it was fine, I ate the entire thing). If you cannot make it to Du Pain, try to get one that looks more like the Du Pain version, less like this one.

Au revoir for now. I’m almost done with french pastry blog posts. Almost.

Voila! I give you my favorite french pastry – the Saint-Honore. I first had this dessert by accident. I saw it everywhere, and it looked like a boring combo of whipped cream and choux. WRONG.

It is actually a puff pastry base, ringed with cream puffs (which are filled with pastry cream, or creme patissiere in French). The cream puffs are dipped in caramelized sugar, which gives is a super satisfying crunch. The traditional shape is a circle or crown (shown below), and in the middle of the creme puffs will be creme chiboust (the name of the bakery where the Saint-Honore was invented), which is pastry cream with whipped cream mixed in to “lighten” it up (what a concept). Then the whole thing is topped with whipped cream.

Here are a few photos to get you in the right frame of mind for appreciating Saint-Honore’s superior position in the pastry rankings.

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I think it is so delicious because it has all kinds of textures – flaky, crunchy, and three different kinds of creamy. And a caramel, vanilla, butter flavor profile is never a bad thing.

According to my wikipedia research, Saint Honore is the patron saint of bakers. The dessert was invented in 1847 at a bakery on Rue Saint-Honore, which you fashionistas will know because it’s where all the fancy fashion houses are.

The very best Saint-Honore I’ve tasted was from Fue de Patisserie (remember the place that ships in all the best pastry from around town). Unfortunately, I can’t remember the chef and they won’t always have it, but if you want really good Saint-Honore, I’d start there.

Another winner is Patiserrie des Reves. Shown above. They only make the Saint-Honore on weekends, so be strategic. I haven’t tried it myself, but my pastry instructor said Hugo & Victor has a really good version as well.

As soon as I find myself a suitable kitchen, I’m gonna start practicing making these babies. So if you don’t have plans to get to Paris soon, you just need to wait until I get good at them, and return to the U.S. Maybe just plan the trip to Paris.

Maybe you are curious about what we do everyday? Before I left my firm for this trip, one of the partners kept saying to me, “I would get bored after a week!” Nope. Hasn’t happened yet!

As Dan likes to say, “this is not a vacation.” So, we (Dan) try to treat the weekdays like work days, and the weekends like weekends. We aren’t super strict about it. For example, we went to Versaille on a weekday to avoid the crowds. And today, a Thursday, is Alice’s birthday, and you cannot work on your pug’s 12th birthday, so we are taking her to the Eiffel Tower to celebrate.

A month into the trip, here is what an average weekday has been looking like. With some asides by moi.

We get up between 7-8 a.m.

I set a goal to consistently get 8 hours of sleep. I am doing it, it’s wonderful, and much easier to accomplish when you do not have a job.

First, we usually work out.

I set another goal for myself to workout every day. The definition of “workout” is flexible, but generally it involves obsessively tracking the rings on my Apple Watch and making sure I hit the move and exercise goals. The stand ring is a joke, Apple.

Next, we go to a co-working space or cafe and do some work. The co-working spaces are neat. You pay by the hour to use the space, and they provide free espresso and snacks!

“Work” is a loose term for me, but it generally means writing, working on projects for a wonderful legal non-profit, Advokids, and researching lunch options. I did just receive materials for my horticulture course, so I gotta start studying, and I’m a little concerned how it will fit into my busy schedule. Dan actually does work.

Lunch is between noon and 1 p.m.

Then Dan goes back to work for the afternoon, and I either come home to hangout with Alice (nap), walk around town exploring, or hunt down random things I get obsessed with like pet stores, bakeries, red lipstick, headbands, and leopard print garments (the last three are essential if you want to pretend you are a French lady).

I make dinner most weeknights. That has been really fun. Paris has unbelievable produce! We San Franciscans think we have it good, but this is a whole different ball game. I’ll blog more about what I’ve noticed about food later.

Here are a couple dinners from this week that I’m proud of.

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Okay, I know they are basically the same meal, but one has carrots and the other has white asparagus (which just showed up at the markets this week), and I wanted to show you both (and prove that I am capable of eating vegetables).

After dinner, we usually talk about how we can’t wait for Game of Thrones to start on April 14, complain that it hasn’t started, and then we watch old GOT episodes, while I do the crossword and Dan does Dan stuff. So this portion of the day is exactly like our life in SF.

Hello Internet Friends (or the one reader we have, Kathryn, much appreciated),

Left to my own devices I would write only about food — primarily carbohydrate-based food — and flowers. And Dan and Alice can’t really be bothered with blogging about their shared passion, engineering. I’m betting we need more of a variety to topics . . . .

So tell me what you want to know about locations we are in, and life abroad after quitting your job in your mid-30s!

xoxo, Lauren

P.S. I will keep blogging about desserts, regardless.

Merci to Andrew and Helen. I’m really looking forward to my new career as a high-powered blogger.

Our first very quick stop after leaving San Francisco was Barcelona. We were there for four days, picked up an EU doggy passport, then took a train ride to Paris, where we are currently living. We will be here for a month.

This month will give me almost enough time to taste all of the pastry and viennoiserie on the Right Bank. I was told if you live on the Right Bank, you don’t really go to the Left Bank . . . (I intuitively understand this, as I do not like to cross Market Street in SF). One pastry I have not tried is the tasty-looking little cochon (piggy) in the blog header. I’ll do it today.

Here are some pictures of the Palais-Royal. Met a lot of dogs and a few humans here.

Just getting our blog legs under us, so no promises this will be any good for quite some time (or maybe ever). But don’t let that stop you from checking back frequently!

Au revoir for now.

Lauren

Intro by @daniel.fritchman

After a decade at Apple, I had a vision of what I wanted to do next: nothing.  I could quit and live off my high-power attorney-wife.  When I told her of this plan, I expected she would be elated at how smart it was. 

She seemed to like it a bit too much.  Shortly after I left Apple, she quit her law firm.  Hence the unemployed part of our title.  We packed up our pug Alice and hit the road.  Now we live, well, somewhere in Europe.  I generally expect we’ll be on the move about every month or so, figuring out one spot at a time. 

Special thanks are due to our good friends Andrew and Helen, who got us Unemployed and Traveling as a very fun going-away present.  For our first week in Barcelona and Paris, Lauren swore she was going to set it up (but had no idea how).  She doesn’t like asking me for help with such things.  When asked how she was planning to get it rolling, she had a simple plan: call Andrew. 

I expect Lauren will do most of the writing here on Unemployed and Traveling.  (She’s the lawyer in the family after all.)  Lauren (@alicecaseface) and I will also be posting away on Instagram (which I was compelled to start using, because my life is cool now).  And @pug_hat, well, she speaks for herself.  I have no control over any of that. 

Dan