Chocolate High.

Aftermath of my nightly bday excursion? A chocolate high, and two boxes of chocolate in my cupboard.

The Quays of the Old Port, lit up specially at night, was breathtaking. Walking to the Quays, through the Old Port with the beloved cobblestone streets and trees hung with stringing halos of light, was beautiful.
The rink was pretty busy, the night was clear and the glow of multicoloured lights emanated from the surrounding buildings and played across the ice. Then, the fireworks started at 8pm and it was spectacular- the music was amazing (in my opinion, no matter how flashy fireworks can be, I cannot be impressed without the element of music to bring it out). The fireworks, though, were impressive not because of the music accompanying it, but for itself. I've never seen the wide variety of fireworks as I saw tonight- there were blooms that reminded me of golden wheat, and fountains of stardust that stayed in the air for so long it must have been melting gold, and little streaks of chirping from these tiny light torpedos that flew upwards in every direction. And the way the fireworks lit up the sky and it reflected off the white of the ice landscape? Omg. Nothing like it. It was just happiness in the chill air amidst the bursts of light and sound, and the presence of living, breathing, loving around me.

We skated, and I fell, and I got up with a big-ass bruise. Then 10pm was the shut-down of the rink, and we went walking through the cold to Juliette Chocolate, which was so small and crowded and quaint and there were around 20 of us and it was cold and it seemed like there was no way we'd be able to get in. It closed at 12am today, and it was 10:30pm. We made it though, by admitting us in two separate groups, one first, then the other. The waitresses were SO NICE, as was the waitress at Nickel's from last time, and before as we were debating what we should do since there were too many ppl inside the small place, and we didn't know how long we had to wait, they called me over 'cause the waitress wanted to talk, and whoa rapid French! Hahaa, but I understand most of it- basically about accomodating us and how we're to split into groups of 6 or 7, and have one group in first, and I asked if it's possible to have a time estimate, she said it was crazy (il est fou) to be able to tell how long etc. So yay, I felt happy I could understand her (more or less) hahaha!
So since it took so much to get all the way here, and finally seated and everything, I said to hell with it and ordered the traditional hot milk chocolate, and a crepe of fruit, chocolate, and ice cream. OMG this place is CHOCOLATE HEAVEN. Seriously. And my crepe? I was asked what KIND of chocolate for my crepe (dark, white, milk?) and what kind of ice cream. I mean, "fruit" crepe is pretty general, so I wasn't expecting much, and you wouldn't, really, from a crepe. BUT when it came, it was mindblowing. The fruit on the crepe was totally out of my expectations. It had SO many varieties: pineapples, baby blueberries, raspberries, apples, grapes, omg I don't even know what else, all together and colourful and drizzled with milk chocolate and also over the yellow vanilla icecream in the middle,which made the milk chocolate drizzle harden into this pretty snowflake network of milk chocolate... heaven. And the milk hot chocolate was like melted chocolate in a cup, it was thick and creamy and it reminded me of the time Mme Rainaldi gave us this article to read about chocolate and the Queen of Spain or something loved to drink this Italian hot chocolate or something where it was basically thick, melted chocolate in a cup. OMG. I'm definitely taking you guys there!! I feel like I have some touristy experience I can actually put to use now (I mean, usually people go to school, then home, then school, and occasionally to clubs/pubs.... it's university. So that doesn't leave students that much time to explore every nook and cranny of the city). And then when we left, it was 12:10am and they sang Happy Birthday in English, and in French as we were crossing the street, and then in German haha as we passed into the metro station. Lol.

Oh, p.s. JYT, I did get that "authentic French kiss" (twice, actually)- but from a Mauritian, which sorta counts??