Two churches, two crepes, a bunch of famous French dead people, and one hot dog

Bon soir tout le monde!
Anothe lovely day in Paris.  The past two days were a bit cloudy and misty, but I remembered that Gil (aka Owen Wilson) from Midnight in Paris  loves Paris in the rain.  I confess, I prefer Paris au soliel, but the city of light is still lovely in the rain.  On Tuesday, I traveled to Montmartre to visit le Sacre-Coeur, one of my favorite churches.  I think I might even prefer it to Notre-Dame, which I visted later...

 I walked up the steps to work off all the baguettes I've been eating (I've been walking so much my calves and my right knee were bothering me!  I can see why French women don't get fat, they walk everywhere!).  The park in front is really pretty, there were some school groups out enjoying lunch while I walked up.  I didn't take any pictures inside because there was a service going on.  Le Sacre Coeur was built in the late 1800s, and has mosaics around the walls and ceilings.  It is simply belle! 

As luck would have it, I bumped into two other Sweet Briar students outside the church.  We walked down the hill and spoke French to each other so that the guys on the street wouldn't try to sell us stuff.  It worked!  We then stopped to grab a quick dejuner(lunch).  I ate a ham and cheese crepe.  C'etait delcieux!  I would have stopped to get a quick picture of it ham and cheesey goodness all wrapped up in a paper cone, but I was too hungry.  We walked along Pigalle and finally came to..........

Le Moulin Rouge!

The district was pretty quiet then, but I bet it's quite different at night!  Every other store had some kind of "adult" entertainment or something along those lines.  If the French are subtle about some things, sexuality is not one of them.

We then headed to our atlier d'ecriture (writing workshop) which was very interesting!  The professor is very engaging and has an interesting way of teaching.  She gives us a phrase, asks for a translation, and makes a lesson out of the mistakes we make.  On our first sentence: No matter what you do, I will always love you.  Les Francais sont tres romantiques, bien sur. We all made an attempt to translate it but no one got it right.  The correct translation is:  Quoi que tu fasses, je t'aimerai toujours.  Gosh darn that pesky subjunctive! 

After class and a tour of the Latin Quarter, I visited Notre-Dame with some of the other Sweet Briar students and ate another crepe (sugar with almonds this time). 

 

Yesterday was just a lot of Sweet Brair stuff, taking classes on how to take classes at French Universities.  BUT then at night I met up with my friend Luisa from high school!  I'm so glad I got to see her, I wish the rest of our AP French class could have joined.

 And then TODAY (sorry I know it's a super long post, but I wanted to catch everyone up on mes activites) I figured out my classes and visited the Pantheon.  I'll be taking two history courses with Sweet Briar and two with the Sorbonne (Paris IV).  I will most likely have an interview next week for an internship at La Cuisine Paris, a French cooking school.  The Pantheon was very cool! I mean that both literally and figuratively.  It was built to serve as a church dedicated to St. Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris and French Kings.  After the Revolution, the French decided to dedicate the building to heros of the new Republic.  A lot of fameous Frenchies are buried there, including (but certainly not limited to) Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Emilie Zola, and Pierre et Marie Currie. 

Le Pantheon

It's Voltaire in a box!

Tomb of Victor Hugo (Author of Les Miserables)

Zola is on the other side of the crypt. 

And here is the hot-dog I mentioned in the title of my post....

The French can take something as American as a hot dog and make it Francais by taking two hot dogs and placing them in a hollowed out baguette and putting some cheese on top!  Yum!

Like I said, another wonderful day in Paris!

Bisous (kisses)

Allison