Today in class Lucy and I did a presentation on the painting Le Moulin de la Galettes by Renoir and it's connection to Montmartre which is the region of Paris in the 18ieme arrondisement. We are learning all about Montmartre in class and so we were inspired to visit the area because we couldn't wait for our field trip on Tuesday.
The first thing we learned about Montmartre is that you should never get off the metro at the Abbesse stop because we probably climbed 20 flights of stairs to the point where all of us on the staircase were laughing(strangers included) because we were all clearly not locals because NO LOCALS WOULD EVER DO THIS VOLUNTARILY. Once we got out we saw this awesome mural with "I love you" in a bunch of languages. At least I hope that's what it was because we couldn't find english or french so if you find it and I'm wrong don't say anything.
We wandered through some awesome and expensive shops and kept climbing staircase after staircase until I was sure I was atop Mt. Everest. Montmartre is beautiful and quiet with the kind of adorable buildings that you would see in some quirky french movie. It looks like the whole thing is a movie set.
Montmartre is the highest point in Paris so when we finally reached le Sacre-Cour the view was breathtaking. There are so many tourists that it almost loses its effect but being that high above Paris is kind of a surreal experience.
Once we had taken in the sights we continued on my quest to find the best macaron in Paris. This search was actually not impressive because I had skipped a few steps and googled this because hello I'm not Magellan and in case you aren't familiar with Paris its really big and nearly every place sells crepes and "macarons" and it's not that easy or inexpensive to try them all. Anyway it took nearly an hour to find this one small macaron shop that had been voted the best macarons in Paris by some obscure blogger that I trusted. We searched for so long and got lost so many times that when we finally saw the name of the restaurant I accidentally raised my arms and cheered and was instantly mocked by a passing Parisian teen. Anyway, I bought a caramel with salt, raspberry and cream, and dark chocolate macaron and we carried these to this small park in the neighborhood where we could eat the macarons and watch the little children play on the playground. If I had been worried that the hour long walk had not been worth it earlier when my feet were practically broken the first bite I took into my raspberry macaron eliminated all those worries. These macarons were nothing short of heavenly and I'm worried already about the types of dreams I am going to have about these wonderful treats.
After this whole adventure was over Lucy and I stopped at the marchee for some groceries and cooked a nice spaghetti and meat sauce meal with a baguette, oil, and fresh mozzerella appetizer and a nice bottle of $3 chardonnay. Tonight we might try to check out the latin quarter but who knows. I'll keep you all posted. A demain!
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