Sup.

I'm still in Paris.

It's still cool.

Today was Miriam's last day. She wanted to take a walk up to the Sacre Coeur. So that's what we did!

On the way we discovered that somebody had murdered the Eiffel Tower and its ghost was roaming the back streets of Paris, looking for souls to feed upon.

That, or there is a lot of pollution.

(Apparently, there's a lot of pollution. I suddenly did not feel so good about breathing.)

We walked a long way. The walk from our hotel to the Sacre Coeur is a bit over an hour, and we kept stopping. We found an amazing little indoor market with all sorts of food stalls. That along made me want to live in Paris. All the fish displayed artistically in ice, rather than just slapped in rows! Rabbits so fresh the eyeballs still looked alive, and all sorts of amazing cheeses.

I have been eating the stinkiest cheeses. It's bloody amazing.

On the way up the hill we paused in a church while my dad figured out the map.

It, like every other damned church in this country, was gorgeous. Many stained glass (though not the best stained glass I've seen) and lots of statuary.

There was this lovely lady who, I believe, does not look nearly a thrilled about her wee tiara as she ought to be.

I use this clip to back my belief up:

CLICKY CLICKY CLICKY

Yep. That.

Anyway, after we left we tottered a short way up the street, and discovered a shop that was a 'gallery of mannequins'. I think it was just a shop that sold mannequins.

Judging by what they had in the window, I would have enjoyed taking a poke around inside. But it was closed (boo).

My father insisted on this picture.

It pretty much sums him up, right there.

I thought it was funny that a mannequin store had 'headless' as one of its alluring features.

Then off we went again! Hooray!

Walking and walking and walking.

You know what one of my pet peeves is?

Tourists who stop in the middle of busy sidewalks.

Yes.

That's all.

We walked through the fabric district of Paris and I VERY VERY CAREFULLY DID NOT BUY ANYTHING. Never mind my darling family would never let me slow down enough to actually properly look.

However. Amazing. The fabric district. Very cool.

Then Sacre Coeur!

You cannot take pictures inside Sacre Coeur. Normally I would have sneaked a picture or two, but they were in the middle of a big service and there were nuns walking around like giant disapproving birds.

I may not be religious anymore, but I still find nuns rather terrifying, and not worth crossing.

But I will tell you a little of the inside:

It is set up much like most churches. Long center area is filled with chairs, center aisle, little stage bit with alter, choir pews on either side. Then there's a walkway that goes all around the edge which leads to various alters to various saints and what not, and the confessionals. Lots of candles burning here.

That was all cool. Nothing particularly extraordinary about that.

The amazing part was the ceiling. It was a mosaic of teeny tiny little tiles, and the HUGEST JESUS I'VE EVER SEEN with his arms outspread like he's halfway into belly-flopping on the congregation. Opposite him, a man I can only assume is God is peeking into the scene and preparing to throw the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch down on everybody from behind.

Instead of that amazing sight, I will give you a much smaller mosaic from the Montmartre cemetary.

This is the same style of tiling, though. You see how tiny the tiles are. This piece is less than my height and maybe four feet wide, at most.

Mind, the entire inside of the...little...building...thingie....was all done in these tiles, right up and over the ceiling.

Very cool.

But I'll get to the Montmartre cemetary a little later.

But first, Montmarte itself!

The community is a little northwest of Sacre Coeur. My dad particularly wanted to see it because of this one square that had a bunch of artists.

"They'll all be crap," he said. "But we can critique it."

So we did. Quietly, so as not to be rude.

There were some very good portrait artists, doing portraits on the spot. Lots of painters painting 'classic Parisian scenes'. Yuck.

There were a couple actually good artists, but not many. Most of it was tourist junk.

I ate ice cream here. It was very good.

I ate a lot of ice cream today.

Then we wandered the shops, and saw meat being delivered to one of the butchers.

Super neat! Also weird.

A little disturbing.

Food handling practices are a lot different in Canada.

At least it wasn't all dripping everywhere.

After Montmartre, we swung down and took a peek at the Moulin Rouge. We also passed by the Moulin de la Galette, which looked a lot less skanky than the picture on the right there.

The Moulin Rouge is bang smack in the middle of the sex district.

SO MANY SEX SHOPS.

SO, SO MANY.

I can't even tell you.

And skeezy looking ones, not even interesting looking stores.

Also, lots of theatres. How appropriate that the sex district and the theatre district are one and the same?

Our last thing of the day was swinging up to the Montmarte cemetary. I think Degas is buried there. We didn't have time to see it all because a) it's HUGE and b) Miriam had to leave soon.

Here is my father, practicing being a corpse.

Dad gets cranky when he doesn't have naps.

I get cranky when I don't get food, and don't get to sit down now and then.

As I was sitting here I was jumped upon by a French cat. First cat I've seen. It was lovely and mostly ignored me, once it was finished jumping.

The tombstones were mostly quite old, but some were as new as 2004 (IT WAS FOR A BABY) and some of them still had colour photographs of the corpses on the gravestones.

Not weird at all.




Here's a dude. He's all:

BOO HOO I'M SO DEAD.

I don't know who he was, but he had a very pretty monument, and FABULOUS hair.

After the cemetary, we went and dropped Miriam off at the Eurostar station. I ate more ice cream (I should probably stop that) and Miriam jammed a fistful of Euros in my pocket, for spending in Amsterdam (THANKS LADY!).

Then me and my dad teamed up against my mother and told her under no circumstances were we walking the hour back to the hotel. We were going to take the tube, and we going to go buy some cheese, and maybe even wine because we were feeling that wild, and then go have naps.

Cranky baby naps.

So that's what we did!

I slept very very hard for a whole hour. Then I ate cheese and pate and baguette, and drank a can of Hoegaarden, which is lovely to me. No wine, though.

Now...now I am finishing this blog post and going to bed. My dad has finally stopped snoring in this postage stamp hotel room, and I think I can sleep.

Good night, all of youse!