Montmartre et Le Sacré-Cœur ENCORE!!

September 1st, 2008:
After a night of staying up late for absolutely no reason, Ahmie and I dragged our butts out of bed at 10am and made our way to the Eiffel Tower to meet our group for a free tour to the top.

We huffed and puffed our way to the group's meeting place, only to find out that the tour was canceled due to computer problems with the tower's elevator. Luckily, our program director had set up a bunch of alternative dates in the event that something like this might happen. She also told us that we could go up by ourselves whenever we wanted and that she'd reimburse us. Isn't she nice? : )

Since we were there anyway, Melissa (our RD) suggested that we have a photo shoot:

From left to right: Mike, Pat, Rob, Andrew, Meee, Ahmie

We walked up the green in front of the Eiffel Tower to get a better shot. From left to right: starting in the back is Rob and Andrew... Up front we have Mike, Pat, Ahmie, Me, and Melisse.

Melissa noticed that Me, Ahmie, and Pat made the French flag... She was excited and made us take a picture. (She is in charge of making a goodbye gift for all of us at the end of the semester, so she loveees to take pictures)

By the time we were done taking pictures, it was 12:30 and being that we didn't have to be anywhere until 3 we decided to go back to our dorm. (We meaning me and Ahmie). Pat tagged along. He had decided to live with a family so he was curious as to what our rooms looked like.

Personally, I think he is verrry brave to live with a family. It's one thing to share a room with someone your own age at UMass, but to have to share a living space with someone much older and who is from a completely different culture - that's scarey. You always have to be careful - you can't stay out to late because you might disturb them if come barging in at 2am. And almost EVERYTHING that you use is theirs. I have heard horror stories.

In Pat's case, he was very lucky. His "family" consists of a nice, middle-age, single woman. She's a teacher so she seems to relate well with him and doesn't have a problem with him staying out late.
She did, however, have a problem with his eating habbits. She thought he was too skinny and wasn't eating a lot so she told our director that she was worried about him. She didn't realize that we have a meal plan and he gets to eat out numerous times throughout the day haha.
I thought that was cute.

At 3:00pm, we all met up in Montmartre for a tour of the more artsy part of the area (versus the redlight district).

On our tour I learned that the metro was built for the World Fair of 1900. Each stop was made with the influence of Art Nouveau (New Art?) and the orginal metro stops that were created all have this artistic "M," for Metropolitain, molded in the railing.

This is a "Wallace Fountain" (Fontaine Wallace in French). They are all over Paris and they provide free, clean drinking water. They were proposed, designed and put in by some British guy named Richard Wallace who wanted to help the poor people of Paris to have access to good water. At one point in time, the Parisians were being forced to pay a lot for water and many poorer families who couldn't afford it were starting to drink wine and other alcoholic beverages - Wallace was worried that alcoholism would become a huge problem in France.

Anyway, all the Wallace Fountains look exactly like this one so if you're ever in Paris and want a drink, this is safe - drink up!

To all you Amélie fans, this is Monsieur Collignon's grocery store that she frequents. It can be found in Montmartre on Rue des Trois Frères.

French Graffiti!! I'm not exactly an expert at sign language or anything but I think those hands spell out "FREE." The "f" looks a little bit weird so I'm not 100% sure.
I think it's cool though.

This is the house that belonged to the famous Egyptian born, Italian singer, Dalida. She committed suicide here at age 54 in 1987.



I had never heard of her until this tour but I looked her up and she is beautiful. Her songs are pretty good too. To me, her voice seems similar to that of Christine McVie from Fleetwood Mac. Rather deep.

Here's a video of her:



Some kids playing a game of boules. I have no clue what it is but they mentioned it in my "Travel Book - France" (from AAA) so I got excited. All that the book says is "Pétanque, the great game of boules from the south, is played in public squares all over France." So maybe the game is called Pétanque not boules... I'll look it up later and get back to you.

Saint Denis - the patron saint of Paris. He pissed of the pagan priests by converting so many people to Chrisianity so they beheaded him with a sord. Now he's shown all over Paris holding his head in his hands. This statue is in a parck in Montmartre.

Before Montmartre was settled it was a farming district known for it's wine. This small, government-owned vinyard is the only winery still in business in Montmartre. They only produce a thousand or so bottles of wine each year (don't quote me on that number - I just wanted to press the point that there are very few bottles made haha).

This is oldest Bistro in Paris. Bistros are said to have started in Paris because Russians would go to Cafés and want something "fast" which i guess in Russian sounds something like bistro. That's what my guide told us - once again, don't quote me... Sometimes I am hearing impaired haha.

We ended our tour of Montmartre at Le Sacré-Cœur.


A few of us decided to go to the top of the church. This whole ordeal consisted of us climbing up a windy, steep, air-deprived stairwell, walking in the gutters along the roof (rather scarey), up another stairwell and FINALLY to the top.



The walk was worth it though. The view of Paris is unbeatable. (In my opinion, it has a better view than the Eiffel Tower).

Speaking of which, you can see the Eiffel Tower from the Sacré-Cœur - see it on the left?? : ]

I have sooo many pictures from up there but it's impossible to grasp the beauty.

Paris, je t'aime <3