Woke up and did a walking tour of Montmartre which was
AWESOME. We came off of the metro and RIGHT there was the Moulin Rouge. So I
was very happy about that. London and I were singing songs from the movie which
was great. The walking tour was pretty cool and we got to go into more of the
town and less of the more “red light” area. We made our way up to the Sacré
Coeur which was gorgeous. It’s located on the highest hill in Paris so the view
is incredible (besides how smoggy/polluted it was). I also couldn’t help but
think of the song “Sacré Coeur” by the Civil Wars which was nice background
music to have playing in my head. I learned that the people of France have,
surprisingly, a kind of weird opinion about the church since it was built in Montmartre
as a sort of punishment and in an effort to “cleanse” the city a bit. In fact,
there’s someone praying in the church every hour of every day for the city,
still! So that was pretty fascinating. Outside there had been a violinist
playing “My Heart Will Go On” which I found nice but kind of funny.
From there we had the rest of the day free. A group of us
went to Chipotle, which I’m not going to lie, was probably the best thing ever
at the time. Cannes is so small and France in general just doesn’t have a lot
of fast food—the most fast-food thing we get are kebabs which are AMAZING but
aren’t quite the same as a Chipotle burrito.
From there everyone started splitting off to do their own
thing. I went with London, Elsa, Yvette, and Melina to the Opera House. It was
only 6 euros as students to go in so we did! Now, London LOVES Phantom of the
Opera so it was kind of a dream come true for her. It was very fun to get to do
it with her and see her excitement. I also LOVED it though. It was designed by
the same architect who built the first casino in Monte Carlo which we were able
to go to a few months ago! And it’s just absolutely stunning. Especially the
theatre itself—just… wow. I also bought a version of Phantom that’s in French!
Then some people wanted to go to the Louvre so Elsa and
Yvette and I just wandered around and shopped and got coffee. That
afternoon/evening ended up being my favorite of the trip by far. We literally
sat outside a café/bagel place for over an hour at least getting coffee and
snacking. Then we walked through the Jardin des Tuileries (kind of on accident
but Elsa had wanted to see it!) and then by the secondhand bookstores along the
Seine by Notre Dame and the lock bridge! I wanted to do a lock but I didn’t. So
I’ll have to save it for when I’m there with someone special! Or when I’m back
at the end of this trip on my own or something too! I don’t know!
We went back to the hotel to change before going to the
Latin Quarter for dinner. A lot of people were there and guys would try to call
you into their restaurants, which is a bit overwhelming, but we found one with
3 course dinner for either 12 or 16 euros depending on which menu you wanted to
order from! (Just to give some perspective, a 3 course dinner in Cannes is 27
euros on average, which is somewhere between $35-40). We had made plans and
backup plans in order to meet up with other friends—since very few of us have
phones, trying to meet up in Paris can be pretty difficult. We did find my
friend Katie and her mom, Ronda, who was incredible. We ended up meeting up
with other people and going checking out the nightlife in the Latin Quarter before
then going to a few places by the Bastille.
It ended up being a really eventful night with some crazy
stories though! One thing that was slightly frustrating was we had to deal with
a very rude receptionist. A girl in our group needed to get into her room but
the key wasn’t working. Now, at least 5 or 6 us of tried to get it to work
(guys and girls) before we asked the receptionist for help—which he did NOT
seem to want to do. However, he told not only the girl and our friend David,
but also came down the stairs and told a group full of girls that the reason
she couldn’t get it open was “because she was a woman.” Now, I did talk to some
other French people about the incident and they communicated to me that it most
likely was trying to be funny. Unfortunately for him, however, it did not come
across that way at all to the group of fairly intellectual young women—especially
since 2 guys had also tried it. He was also just kind of a jerk, hate to say it
but it’s true, to us when we would go in or out.
Probably the more exciting story though, which I wasn’t
around for but heard about the next day, was a girl in our group, Savoy, got
pickpocketed! BUT not really. Which sounds weird. However, she’d put her
I-phone in her blazer pocket, felt it get taken, turned around, and then proceeded
to fearlessly follow this guy and yell at him for her phone. And guess what he
did? He gave it back! So we all thought that was pretty incredible and that she
was pretty lucky to get it. But they warn you about pickpockets literally
everywhere in Paris (in a lot of Europe, but especially there). So it was kind
of crazy to have it happen to someone in our group, but even more surprising
was the fact that she was able to get it back from him!
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