Today we slept in and lagged about for quite a bit. While John slept in a little longer I updated our journal - I had gotten a little behind and luckily had kept notes on all of our day's events. When we were a little more awake we called for our breakfast to be brought up and took our time getting ready for our day. We didn't really have a lot planned but we wanted to try to get a little sight-seeing in. Our museum passes ran out the day before so we needed to make sure of what our activities would be from here out so our expenses don't get too out of hand. I'd managed to pick up a few souveniers and gifts - but I still have a little bit of shopping to do.
We started out our day by going to the cyber cafe for one last time - we used up all of the remaining time we had and updated as many photos as we could - it looked like we loaded some twice - but I can't tell for sure - we'll have to check on it when we're home when we can leisurely go through them.
We stopped by the Supermarche to get some things to make a picnic lunch and we went by the Boulangerie de Magique again for pastries and to take pictures.
We got on the metro and made our way to Montmartre, this time the trains were very busy but we didn't have any difficulties other than my worriedness about missing our stop or the people being around me so close. I had thought by this portion of the trip that I'd have gotten over the nervousness - but not so much.
We got to the Abbesses station and were very happy to see that there was an elevator to take us up most of the way to the top. My heels and ankles still haven't recovered from all the steps at the Arc. When we got out of the station I had intended for us to find the "I Love You" wall - and luckily we were able to see it from the Metro station. Its a huge tiled mural that has "I Love You' written in almost every language - even the hand symbol for sign language! Of course I had to get pictures.
From there we walked through the streets and took the Funicular up the hill to avoid the steps to Sacre Coeur. I was glad that it was available to use to save my sore body. It doesn't take you all the way up to the top, but it gets you up there pretty far. When we stepped out the Sacre Coeur is to the left of you and its pretty impressive as you walk over to it - it just looms over you.
We sat on a bench not too far from the steps and we had lunch. I found out that John had snuck away while I was busy at the St.-Paul place and he picked up a beef sanwich, and surprised me with macaroons!! While we ate pigeons kept coming closed to us but we ignored them until we were done. Since we had some baguette with us we decided to try feeding the birds. Strangely enough the pigeons were pretty docile, completely different from the ones in Place St.-Paul, it turned out to be the little brown wrens that were the most aggressive birds there. They swarmed around in a huge flock quickly out-numbering the pigeons. The wrens are so much smaller that they were able to move faster too. It was amazing - I'd throw a piece of bread out and the wrens didn't wait for it to hit the ground - they flew up and caught it midair!! I'd never seen anything like it before. They were like fat, but ever so graceful hummingbirds.
After a few minutes we walked up the rest of the steps to the Sacre Coeur to see the sights of the city. We were amazed at how many landmarks we were able to see clearly. Sacre Coeur is one of the tallest places to view Paris - the Eiffel Tower is of course the highest. It was really nice to get a glance of the cityscape from another vantage point.
While we were viewing the city a small commotion was going on at the landing below us. There was a peddler that had scooped up his blanket of wares and had run off - then we noticed two other men picking up other blankets of stuff and loading them into nearby bags - we thought maybe they weren't supposed to be there and they knew the police were coming until we realized that the last two men were the police. We figured that the first man must not have had a license or something so he ran off leaving a good portion of his stock behind him. It was a little bizarre to see - but everyone just continued on like nothing was happening.
We made our way back to the Abbesses metro station walking down the steps this time so we could get photos of the murals on the wall. We were very happy to have taken the elevator up once we realized how far down the platform was. After we got back to the Marais we returned to the Tumbleweed store to talk more with the owner - we found out that her name is Lynn and she's been living in Paris for 30 years! She originally came from Pennsylvania. Her first trip to Paris was when she was 16, she decided to make the leap a few years after that. It was really nice talking to her, she was very patient and wonderful to us. I had her sign the journal from our first visit.
We stopped by our hotel room to switch out items in our pack and pick up the laundry bag - we hadn't planned our laundry trip well the other day so we needed to do one more load - but it gave us some nice down time and I worked on the journal while we waited.
We had dinner at a Korean Barbeque cafe at the Place St. Catherine close to the hotel and had beef and chicken meals. They were pretty good - it was a fun experience. We weren't really ready for bed yet so we walked around the Marais a little bit - we picked up ice cream novelties at a cafe off Rue Rivoli then walked up and down the little streets. The ice cream there is really different than it is at home, you can tell that there is more egg custard in it.
While we walked around the neigborhood we saw a group of four police persons that were strolling along and ticketing illegally parked scooters and motorcycles, they even found a car that was parked in a handicapped spot without handicapped signage - they all looked like they had hit the lottery - they didn't even notice the motorcycle on the sidewalk just a few feet away!
We strolled along until we felt ready for bed so we returned to the hotel. John watched a little TV while I wrote in the journal more. We've had fun watching French television trying to decifer what's happening because there isn't any subtitiles - I think we made the shows more interesting than they really were. I have to say that watching MTV's Sweet Sixteen (called My Incredible Voyage in France) is more pathetic than at home, the teenagers behavior is more pronounced when all you can focus on is the body langauage because you don't understand all of the overdubbed voices.
We are having a difficult time believing the trip is almost over - have we really been here for eight days???
-Karen
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