Just Sunday

Sunday after Versailles, I went to church with Sunny, Rachel, Don, and...dum dum dummmm...Paul. Sunny had run into Paul on the stairs, and having assured that he had alternative plans, she invited him to come along. He inmediately changed his plans to join us.

Church was good. We went to St. Etienne and it was better experience than at Notre Dame (though people fainted at both- Stendahl Syndrome or just too hot?).

Afterwards, Sunny and Rachel were heading to the Carnavalet Museum in the Marais. Paul was just standing there. Waiting. Like an alligator in pleated shorts. In order to avoid any akward situations, Don and I just said we were "heading for coffee. Have fun", leaving the women to deal with Paul.

A few hours later after coffee and a visit to the medieval garden at the Cluny Museum, we ran into Rachel back at the dorm. She didn't want to hang out with Paul, so she faked a headache en route, and abandoned poor Sunny to the mercy of Paul. God bless.

They decided to have a picnic at Luxembourg Gardens as a goodbye for Sunny. And there was a little drama because she had invited Paul, but everyone cooled down and decided togo anyway. It didn't matter to me since I already had plans.

Later that evening, I met up with Patrice. We went for walk in Montmartre, and he showed me some really cool sites (like the statue of the man who walks through walls). Then we went to dinner at Le Marroniers, where we met some weird choir professor form Redondo Beach. Then to a couple of bars including Raidd (where they had a live shower show) and Banana Club. He leaves on vacation soon, so we'll try to have diner again before that.

Class in Montmartre

In order to make up for Bastille Day, teacher's were instructed to hold an additional session of class. Carole decided to have a scavenger hunt in Montmartre instead of extending the classes for a hour each day for a week.

I went to lunch with Tien and then met the rest of the class in the courtyard of the Instute at 3pm. We then took the metro to Abbesses and started off at thePlace des Abesses, where our first task was to look at the park wall and find "I Love You"written in your native language. Since it's written every way possibe,it took a while for everyone to find it.

When everyone was done, we got our team assignments- mine consisted of Jian, Sara-Amy-Winehouse, Katia, Katia's friend, and Ghazanfar- and our task sheet. Then the rush began to find all the clues and answer the questions before the hour was up.

We started off disagreeing on what the clues meant. So after a few minutes of going up and down steps and running around in a circle (really, we we ended back at the love wall), we decided to split up the tasks and meet again minutes.

I set off with Ghazanfar, and walked/ran around the nieghborhood collecting locations including finding Dalida's statue and house, theLapin Agile, the wineyard, the house where Picasso lived, and the cafe where Amelie worked in the movie.

Vashik and Katia

The wall to the vineyard

Angry Sara and Jien. She looks like she's smiling but was really wasn't.
Bust of Dalida at Place Da.lida

Me passing the carrot/milk snack back to Tien

After a very hot hour of running around, we met at the assigned place, where a very angry Sara was pissy because we took so long, but mollified after she learnt that we had all the answers.

Then we meet the rest of the class, and had a little potluck picnic. (Tien didn't even partcipate, he just went straight to the picnic,and then he tried to pass the carrot and milk snack that the indian guys brought onto me).

I met Juli at 10:30 at the St. Placide Metro exit, and I dragged Gina and Don with me. We all wanted to eat first, so we headed to Creperie du Clown by the St. Sulpice Church, which Gina had read about in the Rick Steve's Paris book. It didn't open until noon, so we went to grab coffee and croissants, and did a little shopping while we waited.

Creperie du Clown wasn't as scary as it sounded, with mercifully little clown and circus paraphernalia. And the waitress wasn't wearing clown make-up or walking on stilts or anything. All the crepes had circus names though, and I ended up with a lion tamer crepe, which was pretty much a hamburger on a crepe with an egg on top instead of in a bun. I love fusion cooking, but I'm not sure if I trust this Rick Steve fellow.
July is the monthe for soldes (or sales for you gringos), so Juli wanted to check out the Bon Marche. "Bon Marche" means "good prices" in french, though Sister Marie-Joseph said it wasn't that "Bon" or "Marche" anymore, and they were having some good sales. It's also the only department store on the Left Bank, and a little old fashioned in the sense that they still have a toy section and a bookstore along with the St. Laurent and Chanel.

From there we headed to Montmartre to Sacre Coeur. We took a different metro line than the one I took last year with my sister. This one left us closer and with less stairs to climb, but the trade-off was that it was a heavy tourist area and we had to fight our way through the crowd to make it up the hill. Gina even got accosted by a street vendor who kept telling her "Be nice, I'm from Africa" while he was trying to sell her a bracelet. She was like "What?"

After visiting the church, we walked a little around Abbesses, which is really pretty and more like a neighborhood than our area. It's also the part of Montmartre were they filmed some of Amelie. There were lots of cobblestone roads, stairways, and a few gardens where you could actually step on the grass.

Nobody wants an angry nun, and, as we had forgotten to sign out for dinner, Don, Gina and I headed back to the dorm and I made plans with Juli to meet her later for second-dinner. Some things don't change.