final and favorite day

sacre coeur my favorite!

so sorry for the delay on the last paris update. i was up at 7 am and didn't go to bed till 12... between those times i was on my feet. so i was dead tired and i put myself first and went to sleep-call me selfish.

our last day in france was my favorite day for obvious reasons. 1) i bought two pieces of art. 2) we went to my favorite spot in the city. 3) i saw joe cooper (a school friend). but it was also the longest which left me too exhausted to tap my fingers on my keyboard. je suis desole.

we started the day off in the louvre. we spent approximately 4 hours there and according to "them" if you spent one minute in front of each piece of art you would be there 4 months. clearly we didn't see them all. enjoy the picture of the most famous piece in this museum--the mona lisa. she is known in paris as "la joconde" and i don't like this painting at all. i've seen this chick before and she is smug and small. also she has no eyebrows. we don't get along and she really keeps herself at a distance. hey with a name like mona i would too.

after the louvre we hopped on the metro (which i have now fully mastered) and headed to montmartre. this is the artists district and my favorite spot in paris. it also happens to be home to sacre coeur. a church with a view to rival the eiffel tower. the steps could kill you so i personally am a fan of the lift to the top. my nike shorts were too short to enter so me wearing my sweater like a loin cloth was a special treat for all to see. photos are forbidden but of course i snapped some in secret. i have several mobile uploads to add soon anyway. after the church we headed further up the hill (more of a mountain in my opinion) to the artists square. everyone is painting and its amazing. i can't draw a stick figure to save my life so anyone with a shadow of talent is amazing to me. one kind woman chewed me out in french (after making sure i spoke french which sadly i said yes to) when i took a photo of only her paints (seen here) because photographing the paintings is forbidden. we made up once i explained my artsy tendencies and apologized in french... clearly you can see the colors she was painting with so obviously her work is amazing. as for the two i bought i am in love. one is a black and white/silver and grey oil of the eiffel tower, and i was also in love with the artist. and the second is a purple water color set of three paris icons: the eiffel tower, sacre coeur, and arc de triomph. i always feel successful when i haggle for a price. thats one thing american needs to pick up on NOW. additionally by the last day all of my french had come back to me and people would speak to me without trying to be nice and switch to english so i felt incredibly cool!

after that we headed to our home area and did some shopping. we saw another street show but they weren't as good and were kind of rude. some girl was at her bachelorette party and tried to dance with them, penis shaped sucker and all, and they pushed her away :( i of course captured her moment of shame on film.



we did some shopping (mom got a cool gucci wallet, which she desperately needed since the hartman one she has been carrying since they invented sliced bread is coming apart at the seams) and crawled home. we met joe cooper for dinner which made my day! i miss my school friends so much.

au revoir paris! venice tomorrow! (today actually because i'm a day behind...) i'll update later tonight on the city on the water.