An Amelie kind of day

25 Septembre 2007

Today, I got post from home! I was very happy to receive some cards from my family and a friend. Receiving these little things make me feel like I still have a connection with my loved ones who are far away. Early this morning, Liz and I tried to go to her school in Montreuil. However, we had no such luck getting in because the walls around the joint collège-lycée were very high and we couldn’t see the gardien responsible for letting students in and out. To be honest, I was glad that we didn’t stay for long. Montreuil is one of the more run-down suburbs around Paris. Since we weren’t successful at getting to her teacher, we decided not to waste the day and went to Paris. I was so excited about riding the metro because it’s such a major source of public transportation. Outside of the metro, Paris has the RER (regional express railway) and the buses, but the benefit of the metro itself is no traffic jams! We decided to go to Montmartre to see the Sacre Coeur and the Moulin Rouge. When we got off at the Pigalle exit, there were numerous sex shops lining the streets! It amazes me that people just live right above these places. While walking to Montmartre, I noticed that I recognized one of the shops; it was featured in one of my favorite movies, Amélie. Of course, I was tickled pink because I felt like I had stepped into the movie. J We walked by the Moulin Rouge and even stopped in to the official “Moulin Rouge” gift shop. Montmartre placed on some very high hills, so we continued walking through all the winding streets, until we came upon the Café des 2 Moulins, another site featured in Amélie! I couldn’t believe my luck! As we continued the long hike up to the top of the hills, we could see some of the original moulins (windmills) that were used for the original location of the first Moulin Rouge. I bought some postcards to mail to family and friends along the way. At the end of the hike, we made it to the Sacre Coeur, a beautiful basilica that had many tourist visitors. I took pictures of the outside and then we went in, and of course, I was both amazed and disappointed. The amazing part was the basilica itself. It was huge and it had an amazing large Jesus painted on the ceiling along the front of the church. The sad thing is that I wasn’t allowed to take photographs, so my descriptions of the inside can’t begin to describe the view. After walking quietly throughout the church, we left and descended down the stairs to the main streets, where we also found a carousel. And again, all these sites were featured in Amélie! After wandering around the streets, Liz and I wanted to get to home and make some dinner. So we started looking for a metro station. We ended up getting ourselves so lost, that we wondered out the arrondissement (area) where Montmartre is located into a total different one. Since Paris has such a circular shape, all these areas meet together and it is very easy to get lost because the numerous amount of streets. We finally found a different metro station and made our way home. After a challenged attempt to cook omelettes, Liz and I had another quiet night and watched French Kiss. What an appropriate movie after my first day in Paris!