Montmartre, take one

You may remember a week or so ago when I called the area around Porte de Clignancourt and the Marché aux Puces the Parisian ghetto. Clearly at that point I had never been to Montmartre.

This morning I woke up to a beautifully sunny Parisian day, despite my host mom's ominous warnings at dinner last night that the weather was sure to be inhospitable. Molly and I had talked about taking a day trip to the well-known region of Montmartre, home to Sacre Coeur and the Moulin Rouge. We did make it there eventually (Leetal joined up as well), but for a variety of reasons we didn't really end up seeing any of what we'd set out to see.

We arrived at Abbesses Métro stop at some point in the midafternoon. Montmartre (literally, "mountain of martyrs") is on a 130-meter hill that overlooks the more central areas of Paris. For this reason it is the only Métro stop that I know of with this giant elevator to ferry people up out of the ground:





This elevator is bigger than the dorm room I lived in freshman year at UM.

We disembarked and found ourselves in a very quaint area with lots of winding paving-stone streets, much quieter and more scenic than my neighborhood near the Institut Catholique. I believe it was at this point that Molly remarked, "This is what people think of when they imagine Paris."

We decided to wander around in search of some food. Although our meal plans provide for two home-cooked meals every day, most of our families only set out toast and juice for breakfast. Molly, who is apparently big on breakfast in the States, was devastated by the realization that she was going to have to experience this same meager meal every day for four months. I, on the other hand, didn't think it would become a problem for me. I rarely eat breakfast back home, and I usually do enjoy Parisian-style toast with butter and jam. I've now been in Paris for a little over two weeks, and I think I can safely say that I may never eat toast again.

The scant breakfasts mean that we are pretty consistently starving by the time lunch rolls around, so we decided our first order of business was to find some crepes and/or sandwiches in Montmartre. We set off jovially through the picturesque lanes, every once in awhile catching glimpses of Sacre Coeur in the distance. What we did not know was that we were walking away from the well-kept, desirable part of town and into an area that Leetal referred to as "the Harlem of Paris." We passed a hole-in-the-wall creperie and Leetal made the mistake of ordering a banana-nutella crepe which she ended up discarding halfway through, repulsed by its greasiness and the memory of the shady man who put his hands all over the creation as it cooked. We passed a number of shops selling bolts of fabric and cheap wedding dresses, but found no desirable lunch fare.

Inexplicable sites abound in this neighborhood. Above we have what appears to be a heap of men's business attire unceremoniously dumped next to a trash can and some uncollected canine feces. It was at this point that we called Paul and asked him to redirect us to a less sketchy locale.

For the third time in as many weeks, I found myself in the midst of a giant political protest. This time it was a crowd of Palestinians chanting anti-Israeli sentiments as they marched down Boulevard Rochechouart. The person in the second picture is holding a sign that says "Israelis: Make love, not war on the poor." The police were everywhere, equipped with riot shields. If firearms weren't illegal in France I would have been considerably frightened.

Eager to escape the tumult of the protest, we ducked into a Champion supermarché and Molly and I bought a random assortment of baguettes, cheeses, fruits and yogurts for lunch. Leetal, just to be different, purchased nothing but a brick of pink marzipan. The grocery bags cost 30c, however, so we put our purchases in my purse and ate them while sitting on a railing in the Boulevard's median.

When I imagined picnics in Paris, this wasn't really what I had been thinking.

Then Paul called to tell us that some homework for his class was ready for pickup, so we trekked back to the unscary part of Montmartre and retrieved it.

Oh dear, we are a little bit lost. That's the Basilica of Sacre Coeur in the background.

The sun was beginning to set, so we asked Paul what our last stop should be before getting back on the Métro and heading home. He suggested a cute and vibrant bar called Sancerre, where we had some drinks while listening to American music and having wine spilled on us by our disgruntled waiter.

So that was pretty much all we had time for. I promise to go back to Montmartre and actually see the things it is famous for without being caught up in any protest parades or getting lost in the ghetto.

At 7PM I had to skeedaddle back home so as not to be late for dinner. My family served me duck paté again (ohhhh I am going to gain so much duck paté weight in the next four months) as well as a new and delicious vegetable that I think may have been leeks. I also discovered that I love pickled onions! They came in a little jar with baby pickles and they were delicious, which is not actually that surprising considering my passion for foods preserved in brine. Halfway through my meal my host dad came in and talked to me about French politics, which seems to be his favorite topic of conversation despite the fact that I have nothing to add and inevitably give him incorrect information about the role of the Electoral College when he asks about U.S. presidential elections. I'd rather go back to miming urchins.