Spend a day with Melany!

Hello everyone, today you will get to learn how to spend a day in Paris, France! But first, let me introduce myself. I am Melany, a senior studying Political Science at UMass Lowell. I got the amazing opportunity to study abroad for a week in Paris, France, thanks to the Honors College at UML, and this is how I spent day 2 of our trip.

First, start your day with some carbs (quite a lot)! For today’s breakfast, I chose to eat some croissants, pain au chocolat, (chocolate bread), and white bread with a little bit of apple juice, ham, and strawberry jelly (the best strawberry jelly I have ever had)

I later headed out to the metro station to get to our first activity of the day. A cooking class! In this class, we got to learn how to make a signature dish in Paris, salmon with arugula and carrots. It was a really fun activity to do with the chef and the rest of the students who were on the trip. We got to learn how French people like to eat their salmon (not too seasoned, not too bland, and with a lot of balsamic sauce), and amazing cooking tips and tricks on cutting the vegetables and making the dish itself. After the salmon, we got served a sweet treat, which was a creamy vanilla dessert called “panna cotta” with raspberry jelly, topped off with cookie crumbs.

After eating, we then took the metro to go to our second and last activity of the day, which was looking at the Street Art in the 13th arrondissement’s city hall and multiple galleries or projects such as Boulevard Paris 13 (Galerie Itinerrance) or Seres Queridos. It was a very interesting and very informative walking tour. The art was so incredible to see, and the stories behind it were so interesting to hear. Our guide was very knowledgeable about the art, so following his comments about it, was really nice and easy to understand. The art itself was magnificent; I couldn’t believe that I was looking at such art. The two pictures here were my favorite artwork, because of how impactful they were to my eye, the colors, and the paint itself were just too good.

After the street art tour was done, my friend Julia and I went to this cute bakery and had a quick bite of food. We ordered some pastries, a mango pastry (Trompe-I’oeil Poire) filled with mango pieces inside, before heading back to the hotel. We also strolled past this cute bookstore and ended up buying souvenirs and grabbing a drink!! All of this was in the same arrondissement where we saw the street art, so it was pretty convenient.

We then headed back to the hotel, showered and dressed, and then we went to have dinner together at this Pho place called Pho Bom. The food was really good, and better than the Pho I have had back in the U.S., so I recommend it 100%.

After having dinner, we went back to the hotel and went to sleep! It was a fun and long day. I’m happy I was able to experience all of this in just a day!