Montmartre

Today we made the trek across Paris to Montmartre- the home of artists and madmen, the green fairy, the Moulin Rouge, overpriced tourist traps, minibottles of absinthe on sale in a gift shop, and anything else your heart desires! Haha but in all seriousness Montmartre was great. It was quite a different flavor of Paris than we've seen yet! The walk from the Metro stop to Sacre Coeur was rather sketchy, in fact its the first time I've felt legitimately uncomfortable walking in Paris, but it was a rather quick walk and soon enough we were back to the comfortable cushion of touristland :) Apparently when the artists moved out a whole other brand of people (and lots of garbage) moved in. Not complaining, just advising! Once we got up to the hill the atmosphere did a complete 180. We took the funicular (i'm not entirely sure thats how its spelled...) up to Sacre Coeur to avoid me literally having to drag Granny up several hundred steps- well worth it, even if it did use our last Metro tickets and had to deal with densely packed people and someone's child grabbing on to my leg...

The Basilica itself was a bit of a disappointment. Its beautiful from the outside but inside its not all that special. I think it has something to do with the lack of 500 years of dust that Notre Dame has accumulated. The sculptures and especially the stained glass windows are modern and very interesting, but we didn't get much time to look at them. They kind of funnel the tourists through it, you can't even take pictures or take the time to appreciate each chapel. Sacre Coeur is a Catholic church, and they have some sort of perpetual prayer dealio going on, but its been the first place in Paris that I've been disappointed with. They had those little coin-pressy-souvenir things right in the church, which even I found highly inappropriate and I'm not exactly the foremost authority on what is or is not appropriate in a  church. After we left the church my left arm started hurting in a very weird way, so either I've finally been smited or I'm having some sort of heart failure or I've pinched a nerve. Verrrrryyy weird. It still hurts actually. C'est la vie.

The rest of Montmartre was much more pleasant! The views from the hill were to die for!!! I was able to take pictures today but I'm feeling lazy so I'll put them up tomorrow :) There were cobblestone streets and huge staircases and flowers in the windows- it was just perfect. We had lunch in this amazing cafe that had an outdoor patio that had a big old tree growing up from the middle of it so the leaves completely made a roof over the tables. I had a salade vegetarienne which was actually some form of lettuce with dressing, a skewer of fresh fruit, a slice of watermelon and canteloupe, a dish of fresh salsa, some sort of sour cream, a couscous with feta and veggies, roasted peppers and zucchini on skewers, and  amazing whole-weat bread. I think its the best lunch I've ever had.

After lunch we strolled along to the cemetery, which was very different from any cemetery I've ever been in. It was all mausoleums jam-packed together, and they'd even built a bridge right over a huge section of the  cemetery. Very weird. Most of the mausoleums were still very well kept up with flowers and everything, a lot had their own stained glass windows and statues inside! Definitely puts our gravestones to shame.

After Montmartre I was going to go to the Catacombs, which are right down the street from our apartment, while Grandma took her nap. But alas, they're closed on Monday. And alas, I did not bother to check the book beforehand to see if they were open. Ohhhh well. I went on a nice walk instead, and then bought pasta so we could eat in tonight. The ravioli was ridiculously fresh- I thought it was amazing, but I'm not sure Grandma liked it as much. After dinner we went for a walk and then had dessert at Cafe Daguerre- a corner brasserie that has about a hundred outdoor tables and is always always always packed. Great dessert though! I had a lime sorbet that for some reason came with a shot of vodka... don't ask me why. We couldn't figure out if you were supposed to like sip the vodka and then  take a bite of sorbet or pour the vodka on top so I ended up just leaving it alone and then pouring it in my bowl at the end with the melted bits of sorbet hahaha. I'll stick to my kirs thank you!

We watched Love Actually back at the apartment, and I really should be asleep right now because we're getting up early to go to Chartres tomorrow!!!