Ma Vie à Paris: Paris in a Cone

The title comes from a quote by my friend, Jackie, who pronounced it upon finishing an ice cream from Berthillon. This Sunday, Jackie, Maria, and I made the obligatory pilgrimage to Berthillon, which is reputed to be the best ice cream in Paris. Luckily for me, the island where I live is home to the Berthillon store, as well as a host of other restaurants that sell their ice cream.

I’d have to agree that Berthiilon does sell some of the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted. I spent two weeks in Paris with my family when I was little and we got their ice cream four tomes. Unlike a lot of the gelato places that are springing up all over the place, but especially in the Bay Area, the ice cream is slightly more old-fashioned. The flavors are mostly old classics, but they also have a variety of fruit ones. There is only one pure chocolate, so this Sunday, I went out on a limb and got pêche (peach) and mandarin (orange). If you know me, you’d realize that this is a true deviation from my typical behavior.

After we finished our ice cream, my two friends and I went to the Institut du Monde Arabe, which is a building just across the Seine from where I’m staying. Maria, who is an excellent travel companion because she knows something about every building, explained that the windows are designed to close when light shines on them. I unfortunately did not take a picture of them, but they were circular and the panels gradually shrink the diameter of the circle to close. We were able to really look at the windows, because the Insitut is absolutely free. We were also able to go all the way to the top and were rewarded by this lovely view of Paris.

In the course of our afternoon of wandering, we stumbled upon the Cimetière du Montparnasse where you can visit the graves of a number of famous people. This is the graves of Sartre and De Beauvoir, which for some strange reason, are covered with metro tickets.