Sacre Coeur

The picture on the left is Sacre Coeur (which means "Sacred Heart" in English.) The picture on the right is me holding on for dear life when we were up in the great big dome up top...it's quite a drop from up there.




Hey folks!
Sorry for my complete failure to update you lately but honestly, not much has happened in the last couple weeks. I think the most interesting things that have happened have been a woman asking me where the nearest metro was and me giving her directions, and a man asking me for directions to a street that I vaguely remembered...I think I sent him the right way. Both conversations were in French and they recognized me as someone who might live around there. It was cool. Other than that, I've just been going to classes and studying.
Today, however Callie and I went to Montmartre, and more specifically Le Basilique de Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart Basilica). It was awesome! Although Montmartre is known throughout Paris as one of the easiest places to fall victim to pickpockets, it was a lot of fun. You just have to be conscious of what is happening around you all the time. Montmartre was basically a little village outside of Paris that got sucked up into the city. It's now part of the city but the beauty of the little village remains. We got there and went inside the Basilica right away. That didn't take too long, and we were starving!!!! So we wandered a little and found a cute cafe at which the waiters wore the coolest, most cliche french outfits ever. They all wore white collared shirts with a little blue scarf tied around the neck, black pants with suspenders, and a white, beret-looking type of hat. It was fun. Callie and I each had a glass of white wine and we split a pizza. The pizza was amazing! It was ham, cheese, mushrooms, and topped with an egg. It was a very french pizza but absolutely amazing!
After lunch, we wandered the shops a bit. We went in search of paintings for Callie's parents. Montmartre is crawling with artists, almost literally. They line the streets. Unfortunately, a lot of the paintings were either too expensive or the price wasn't marked on them and we didn't feel like bartering. But we ended up finding two absolutely beautiful paintings in a little art shop along the street. After succeeding in our mission, we returned to the Basilica. We wanted to climb to the top of the dome, where you can see all of Paris. I have to say, that is the most beautiful view of the city, by far. Way better than the Eiffel Tower! It's awesome because Montmartre is actually on a huge hill. (It was a beast to climb up!) Anyway, we climbed the 300+ stairs that it took to get to the dome. We took a ton of hilarious pictures of the climb up. One included each of us looking like we had collapsed on the stairs. We spent a long time in the dome. The view was just so amazing. It looks like every view you've ever seen of typical Paris, but magnified in beauty by about 20 times. I can't even describe it, but the whole time I was up there, I kept thinking about what Paris was like in the movie The Moulin Rouge. That's the best comparison that I can think of right now.
After the long descent back to the crypt, we decided to climb down the hill and return home. Our legs were literally shaking whenever we tried to stand still. Besides, we have a long day tomorrow. We're going horseback riding by a chateau in the French countryside. I'm super excited but we are going to be so sore by the end of the weekend that we may not be able to move....we'll see tomorrow.

Love you all!
French Amy