It's pronounced No-trah Domm.

Today was a lovely day, so I moseyed on down to Notre Dame for some quality lunch-n-literature time.

The other day Molly, Leetal and I discovered this tiny falafel shop off Boulevard St. Michel, so I decided a return trip was necessary. As the following photo proves, it was a good life choice.

I had never had a falafel before coming to Paris and oh boy, have I been missing out.

When we went to Notre Dame for Paul's Paris by Site class, I was sadly without camera. Here's what you missed:

The two towers were supposed to be higher and probably peaked, but they were never completed.

The gargoyles are hilarious and I love them, but sadly they're not medieval at all. They were added when the church was renovated in the 1800s and reflect the Victorians' imagination of medieval architectural motifs.

I brought my copy of Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, thinking it would be interesting/nerdy to read it at Notre Dame itself. I sat on a bench in the garden behind the church and read until the weather became menacing.

The view from my reading bench.

I went inside seeking refuge from the cold, but Notre Dame's interior is so dim and packed with camera-happy tourists that it's not really an ideal reading locale, either.

Then by accident I stayed long enough that a vespers mass started. An usher handed me a sheet of hymns and I spent the next half-hour solemnly singing along (off key, of course) with the cantor. It's interesting that church in a different language is not as thoroughly confusing as you might think, simply because the intonation and rhythm (in Catholic masses at least) seems to be the same the world over.

Altar close-up. This isn't the altar that's actually used during mass-- that one is farther forward and inexplicably modern in style.

As usual I don't know how to wrap this up, so we will end with this totally unrelated picture of me eating a tiny chicken at an open-air market yesterday.

Molly laughed at me for buying the little chicken and then eating it off my lap sans utensils, but it was SO GOOD that I don't care.