Wow, hard to believe that I actually survived this past week.  I feel pretty good about almost all of my mid-terms, so it’s a huge relief to be done with them.  Now it’s time to plan for finals in 1 1/2 months.  But, before I do that, I took some time this past weekend to just relax and walk around some off my favorite areas of the city:  Montmartre, Ile Saint Louis and along the Louvre.

I finally figured out how to take pictures with my phone so they don’t come out sideways; I have to turn my phone sideways, in a certain direction.  Probably not how it’s supposed to work, but hey, I made it happen so that’s all that matters; it’s just a little bit redneck.

I took some better pictures of the artist’s square and I’m going back next weekend to have a picture drawn of my daughter.  It’s actually not a bad price, 60 euros, for an original drawing that is spot-on.  I hope she likes it.

Mime was actually the first form of theater and you will find plenty of them around Paris.  Montmartre has two regulars that I know of:  this one is Paul and he definitely works hard for his money.  He had a good-sized crowd this afternoon and he did a bang-up job!

It’s that time of year for the warm chestnut stands to be open.  I love these!  The chestnuts are delicious and hit the spot when you’re walking around and it’s chilly.  Nummy-noms!

Recently, Montmartre had it’s annual wine festival in the streets all day and evening.  It was absolutely packed, but there were a ton of wine and champagne vendors and you could walk around and sample the wines and champagnes for anywhere from 1-5 euros.  And you got a real glass champagne flute to keep.  Was an absolute blast and the night was beautiful.  This is me and my friend from school Nadya. 

After I left Montmartre, I decided to head down to Les Halles, which is a partially underground shopping mall.  The original Les Halles was also underground and began as a horse market in the 12th century.  After much degradation and reconstruction, it was finally demolished in 1966 and moved to it’s current location.  Now it’s a huge mall with all of the normal mall stores, but it’s fun to walk around and window shop (and maybe buy a few things…).  However, I forgot it’s Sunday and almost everything is closed in Paris on Sundays, so I decided to head outside and walk from the beginning of Rue de Rivoli to where I live, which is where the Champs-Elys�es begins.  I took this picture of the Louvre because we were just talking about this in my architecture class.  The left and right sides of the Louvre were constructed over 100 years apart, but you would never be able to tell.  The architects were so precise and so attentive to detail to maintain the symmetry of the building, that it appears it was all built at the same time.  Little bit of trivia for you there…:)

If you look closely through the doorway in the center, you can see the glass pyramid that was built by American architect, I.M. Pei.  I noticed as I was leaving and thought it was a neat shot.  On the other side of that doorway is the main entrance to the Louvre and the big and little glass pyramids.

Well, that was my week, folks.  Not very eventful except for the milestone of mid-terms.  Whew!  This coming weekend we have 5 days off for fall break, so we’ll see where my travels take me. 

Toodles for now,

Mary

Location: Paris, France