A Monday in Montmartre.

Monday, we journeyed to Montmartre. I love Montmartre, let it be know.

We zoomed over via Metro, and as we exited the train, all the Parisians were lining up for the elevator. We looked at them, looked at each other, looked at the stairs and said, "We're young and spritely! Let's take the stairs!"

Bad idea, my friends, bad idea. Apparently, unbeknownst to us, the Montmartre stop is 6 flights of stairs underground. This would be why the Parisians were all taking the elevator. As we begin climbing, it's fun and there are beautiful murals on the wall. But then we keep climbing. And keep climbing. And keep climbing. And start laughing. And are dizzy (because they're spiral stairs). And are sure we're never going to make it out a live. And keep climbing. And finally reach the top of the stairs in hysterics of laughter. Do you know how hard it is to climb stairs whilst laughing your guts out?

We headed up to Sacre Coeur, and climbed the steps to the basilica, and then Jared and I decided to climbed the 300 steps to the top. Which was worth it, but took our stair count for the day to about 1,000. Guess it was the workout of the day!

              

       

We left the tourist trap that is Sacre Coeur to go out an explore where we found the oldest cabaret in Paris, after finding one of the oldest churches in Paris, because ya know, you gotta balance out your religious and sexual sides when in Montmarte. Rachel and I were big fans of the name of the cabaret: The agile bunny. We decided that's where the idea of the play boy bunnies originated from. Don't you think?

We wandered around Montmartre, found Renoir's house, found Van Gogh's house (with a blue door that made me really really happy), found the Moulin Rouge, walked up and down lots of hills, saw lots of tourists and also lots of gypsies, and then decided to go to ghetto-ville: Saint Denis.

Here's the real quick version of the story of Saint Denis. Saint Denis was preaching to all the Parisians about what sinners they are and some dude whacked off his head mid-preaching. Not to be phased by a whacked off head, Saint Denis picked up his head, continued to walk and preach, and walked to the area of the Basilica where he died. I love the saints. They are so incredibly awesome! Sometimes I wonder why we don't have cool saints like that in mormonism... 

This is Marie-Antoinette and her Husband

Anyway, now Saint Denis is home to all the tombs of the kings of France. So Jared, our French major, was in heaven. Apparently, it is also the first example of gothic architecture, so Alex, our art-history major, was also in heaven. I just asked a lot of questions. Fun fact of the day: Prince Phillip in Sleeping Beauty is based off of Philip le bel. So yup. I loved it all. I especially love that my nerdy friends were so incredibly excited to be somewhere. Nerds make life better.

Oh, also in this same day, Jared had to go buy some random things at the grocery store. So Alex and I accompanied him. However, he didn't have anything to put his goods in. I happened to have my very nifty expandable bag that Christine kindly bought me before I left to Paris, so he rocked it like a man. I made him stop for a picture after FHE because it just made my day that he kept walking around with this bag. What a man, what a man, what a man, what  a mighty good man. 

Aimer toujours,
Ems