We stayed in a lovely two-star hotel in Montmartre, right near the Moulin Rouge- which is, you may know, basically like the red light district. I had stayed in this area last time I was in Paris, and it is really cute, so I assured Mo and Dre that the hotel was in a really nice neighborhood- they were a little skeptical when we emerged from the metro in front of a giant sign that said Sexodrome. They came around though.
It was just our luck that all the museums in Paris decided to have a giant strike so none of them were open. This didn't bother Mo and I too much because we had already been, but we felt bad for Deirdre as it was her first time in Paris. (The Eiffel Tower was open but once we saw the line to get to the top, Mo and I assured Dre that it wasn't really all that great). It was kind of nice though in that we got to spend a lot more time walking around. It was colder than Madrid, but besides one day of rain we had good weather. Given her love of history, Mo was really excited to walk to the Bastille when she saw it on the map. Imagine her disappointment when we arrived and remembered that the Bastille had been destroyed way back in, like, the 18th century and all that remained was a memorial sculpture and a modern opera house. (Incidentally, if you ever wanted to know where punk ass Parisian teenagers gather to smoke pot and drink boxed wine it's under the electronics store next to what was once the Bastille). After that disappointment, we spent the afternoon wandering around the Marais, which is a very cute neighborhood.
In addition to strolling Paris's beautiful streets and taking in the sights, we ate lots of delicious food. On Friday night, Maureen took us to a fondue place she'd gone to before where they serve wine in baby bottles- tres chic. On Saturday and Sunday we met up with Van, Mo's friend from high school who is working as an au pair in a town an hour outside of Paris, and his sister, Brie, who was visiting him. Both of them are major foodies so they had looked up all of the best places to go. Two nights in a row we had very delicious and very French food at very cute and very French bistros- tres tres chic.
Though Paris is of course amazing, it was admittedly a bit of a relief to come back to Madrid, where we at least have a basic grasp of the language. In Paris, we tried our best to get around with "oui," "merci," and "trois" with little success- though luckily most Parisians were pretty nice about speaking English to us, despite their reputation (I think the key is to attempt to speak in French that is so hopelessly bad that it's kind of cute, or at least pitiful.) I was hoping that the few weeks of Rosetta Stone French I'd done a few summers ago might come in handy but sadly nothing about a young girl on a horse ever came up.
Unfortunately, my camera batteries were dying so I don't have a ton of pics, but here they are:
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| Paris, je t'aime |
Genny,
ReplyDeleteDo you teach in a Catholic school or is the concept of separation of church and state unknown in Spain? I thought you were teaching in a public school -- 4 days to observe the feast of the Immaculate Conception seems over the top. By the way do you know what the Immaculate Conception is?