Montmarte & le Sacré-Coeur

The past few days have been fairly interesting. Unfortunately, the cold has been making me not want to do much, but that hasn't really stopped me I suppose. Yesterday we got our test results and chose classes. I'm in the intermediate level and I'm taking 3 seminars as of now, although I may drop one because I'll only get real credit for 2 of them. I'm taking Architecture of Paris in French, which should be interesting. We won't always be meeting in a classroom. Instead, part of the time will be spent on field trips to various buildings and monuments around the city.

Last night I used my first meal voucher. We were stupid and let ourselves get suckered into a restaurant where an entrée, plât and dessert were only €10 on top of that to entice us they offered us each a free glass of wine. You could probably guess that none of it was very good. I'm sure it was on par with the terrible places EFF Tours took us. My onion soup smelled bad and had hunks of burnt bread in it. The steak (yeah steak as part of a 10€ meal) was edible but not good. It was pretty rubbery and crappy. Finally, I had ice cream for dessert. It was a like single serving slice of neapolitan, but it was freezer burned and dried out. Now we know.

Also last night, we went for a beer close to that restaurant, in the Latin Quarter. The place was called Shywawa and was pretty cool. Also, I tried a beer called Delirium Tremens (pictured below), which will amuse at least Amanda. It was pretty good.



Today the four of us went to Montmarte for the day. We visited the Sacré-Coeur and walked around a bunch. We saw basically the same things I saw two years ago but it was still fun. These things include, the Sacré-Coeur, le Chat Noir, le Moulin Rouge, and all the other million sex shops in the area. Easily the largest of them is the Sexodrom. It sticks out like a sore thumb on the street. It's this huge black and red neon building amongst normal stone Parisian buildings. We also discovered Tati a department store kind of place that has everything from clothes, housewares, shoes, bridal stuff, and jewelry at pitifully low prices.




For dinner we used another meal voucher but this time the place was a lot nicer. Le Petit Poucet I believe it was called. I got another steak, but this time with shallots and it was way better. It was a bit more than the other place, but it was easily worth the extra 3€.

I think I'm spending the weekend in the city might check out a museum or see a movie or something. However, next week Tuesday through Thursday I'm heading the Belgium for a few days to see Brussels and Chimay.