Yesterday was a very full day. I marche-ed until I could not marche anymore. Aurora and I decided to enjoy our first day in the city by walking around and exploring. We started out the day in Monmartre, winding our way up the hill to Sacré Coeur. There were tons of people there, speaking dozens of different languages. We went into the church, walked around a little, then parked ourselves on the grass outside to people watch and plan our route from there. Outside, besides the hundreds of tourists, there were street musicians (including a man who had managed to station his full-sized harp on the steps), men selling model Eiffel Towers and cheap plastic sunglasses. There were plenty of interesting characters to hold our attention as we took a quick break.
From there, we went down the hill and made our way to the Cemitière de Monmartre. It was a beautiful day--70s with a bright blue sky. Unfortunately, we both forgot our sunglasses and wound up squinting all day long. We won't make that mistake again! We got to the cemetary and consulted the map so we could find the graves of some of the famous people buried there (Zola, Berlioz, Degas, Dumas, Stendahl, etc.). Despite this effort, we were woefully unsuccessful. We didn't manage to find a single famous grave!
From there, we made our way back towards the 9th, grabbing a quick lunch from a boulangerie on the way. Sandwiches (on baguette of course), fancy pastries, and sodas, all for 5 euro. Yum yum yum. We ate on some park benches in front Église de la Trinité, the church my host parents go to.
From there, we continued to Galleries Lafayette to do some window shopping. The flagship store is seriously the most beautiful store, and one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen. It carries every designer brand you could possibly think of. Aurora and I had fun just walking around all of the fancy clothes. Everything was so entirely out of our price range there was no temptation to buy.
Afterwards, we hit the streets again and walked all the way to the Louvre. Aurora wasn't in the mood for a museum so we walked around the Tulleries and then down by the Seine. Finally, we grabbed the metro home. It was one very full, very fun day.
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