Hello friends! How are you? We have been away from home for 90 days give or take now. It feels like a lifetime though. I am sitting cozied up in France. Where I am sitting on my friends couch with Alex and my replacement dog, Miguel. Thankfully I am less allergic to Miguel than I am to Jerry. We arrived to Paris France 3 days ago. And we arrived to Dijon France yesterday. We left Boston 4 days ago. It was an easy trip (outside of the crazy landing turbulence where people legit gasped at the drops). But our jet lag was intense, especially for Marlowe. 11 pm – 1 am bedtime anyone? But we’re working through it. Sort of nervous for the next 5 hour time change we have ahead.

I need to get better at the “sleeping on planes” thing. I’m legit looking about planning our whole return back to the states (yes, I still haven’t planned that) around sleep schedules. Specifically for me, not even Marlowe. Because at least she can sleep on planes.

We arrived to Paris at around 11 am. After two night flights. Since we weren’t able to check into our apartment, we headed straight to lunch. On a whim, I found the cutest vegan gluten-free place ever: Abattoir Vegetal (Vegetable Butcher) It was amazinggggg. I can’t find their website but this is their facebook if you’re curious. I got a black bean burger which was one of the best veggie burgers I’ve ever had. The only downside is that both Marlowe and I were so tired that we were nauseous. But I inhaled the burger anyway because it was delicious.

We then headed to our apartment at 2:30 to check in and nap. And nap we did. For a glorious 3 hours until the sun was just about to set. It was raining and cold (warmer than Massachusetts though) but we hit the streets anyway to see if a cold walk could help with the grogginess.


I have two regrets on this Paris escapade. 1. is I did not, in any way, take enough photos. And the few photos I took were out of focus, but whatever. I was SO tired and hardly functioning. 2. I def. need to watch what I eat a lot more. I know I mentioned it in my last post, but my stomach was doing really well for a long time, and got weird in Massachusetts. This might be due to my hormones still regulating since the miscarriage, but I’m not sure. Could be anything. But me being super lax with my diet in france (hi gluten, hi nuts) was a badddd idea. I’m paying for it now. But yolo, right? Heh. I’m going to be a bit more careful starting today. Anyway, blurry photos and poor eating aside, the walk was nice. And the shops are always the cutest thing ever.

We thought a pizza place would be the perfect place to treat Marlowe at the beginning of this trip. Despite being super excited, she headed upstairs and I found her in the corner with a book, while we ordered dinner. I told you she’s always reading, haha. She finished the whole book in the last three days and it was a LONG one!

The best way to have her put down a book? Put pizza in front of her. We ate at Hank Pizza– yes, an all vegan pizza place in Paris. Amazing. Which a TON of people recommended last time, but we didn’t try. We don’t usually eat at exclusively vegan places, they aren’t very good back home. But without planning it we ate at only vegan and vegetarian places this trip– and they were all AMAZING. Hank pizza even had GF options, so I cant say this was a terrible choice for my diet haha.


The next morning it was still rainy rainy rainy but clear enough to have a great view of the Eiffel Tower. Marlowe was SO happy about this. She asked me to come to the window to look at it with her– over and over again. Of course I did every time. It was so nice to see her so excited about that thing. I should probably mention “the next morning” actually means at 11 am. Because: time change.

We had a late start to the next day, but were totally cool with this. We hit the streets in the rain and took a 20 minute walk Β than all vegan bakery where we ate croissants and acai bowls (not pictured. because: exhaustion).

And then we headed to the Louvre. I was totally going to skip this (again) but this day was all about Marlowe. TO be honest, she hasn’t been super excited about this trip. At times, she’s been really excited about certain aspects, but not the trip as a whole. Which makes sense…. we know what we can look forward too… we’ve made all the plans. But Marlowe doesn’t know what to expect or imagine outside of a few key things. So we asked her what she wanted do in Paris on her day. And she wanted croissants or crepes for breakfast, the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. Done and done. Me eating the croissant (or a few bites of it was a bad move).

I was impressed by how excited she was at the museum. I thought she would find herself a bit bored there, but no, she loved every second and all the art except “the creepy paintings.” Fair enough, some are really creepy man.

After the Louvre we headed to an all vegan brassiere. Not pictured. Because: I’m not sure. Food was decent but nothing to write home about. Here I ate nuts and a bit of gluten. Big mistakes. We then bundled up in our coats (still raining) and headed to the metro.


Next stop: her tower. She was so excited by it haha. She was super bummed that we didn’t go up it. But it was FREEZING and the line was long. Either way she was impressed by that big ole’ metal tower.

We then made the commute to an all vegetarian Indian place. Not pictured, but delicious. Here I ate things my stomach can agree with (I think anyway). Not pictured, but just imagine a giant dosa and Indian dishes. It was good. And the restaurant filled up quick. We were lucky to get there when we did.

The next morning it was still rainy. Honestly, we didn’t mind the rain much. And the temps were fine too. Though if it has been any colder, it would have been too cold.

We packed up our things and hurried down the streets to another bakery with a ton of vegan options. Here I also ate more bread… and other gluten products… and nuts. And now my stomach hates me. It’s silly because I paid for this over price gut intolerance test recently and everything except walnut and some fish products came out in the green. But I know for a fact that my stomach freakssss out when I eat certain foods. So I thought, her let me give these foods a whirl again, its been a few months since I last had them, maybe the test was right. Nope, the test was wrong. I’m going back to no gluten and no nuts stat.

But anyway, other than my stomach/body issues, the trip has been good so far. I don’t think we’ll see much sun here in France, but we’re okay with it. We’re happy here. I’m looking forward to market visits and spending the next few days with friends before we head to Nepal Thursday night. (Wish me luck on that 12 hour night flight)

I’m just hoping to be able to put all the focus on the good stuff around me and not the icky health stuff. Keep pushing forward with my family and see more of the world. I gotta say, for me not being a city person, Paris has grown on me even more. Even in the cold rain. France is doing it right. Every corner has an organic restaurant or market. Vegan and healthy options everywhere. Fruit markets on every street. The US seriously needs to step up its food game. Paris is food heaven. And amazing boutique heaven too. So much cuteness and awesomeness everywhere. If it were 40 degrees warmer in winter, I’d live here haha.

I hope you guys are well. I tried to link as many of the restaurants that we went to as I could— I know a lot of you guys messaged me on IG looking for that πŸ™‚ If you want to see any other specifics of our big trip, let me know! Happy to do it! Have a wonderful and healthy week, friend!

6 Comments

  1. Adored this post πŸ™‚ Glad everyone enjoyed Paris especially (surprisingly) Marlowe! Looking forward to hearing how the rest of your France stay was!

  2. Love this post, France looks like a dream! Just a little typo in your post: Brassiere (bra) instead of Brasserie! Don’t correct it please… it gave me a good laugh πŸ˜‰

    • Andrea

      I realize I never responded, but I def. enjoy this typo as well. Thanks for pointing it out!

  3. Nice post- I love Paris. I’m curious as a vegan what your thoughts are on down and wool? It’s something that I struggle with because I live in a cold climate and can’t find much cruelty free warm options for winter wear.

    • Andrea

      I’m okay with wool! you can def. find ethically sourced wool. Down– not so much. Even ethically sourced down isn’t great– it just means they dont live pluck the ducks. It’s def. a tough thing.