I love Paris

Today was our final day in Paris before I depart of Grenoble and get settled. While my aunt and I were sitting in a cafe drinking a cafe creme, I decided that I love Paris. It is so beautiful with its endless streets of cafes and designer clothing stores. Everyone wears really fancy clothes and shoes and I have seen quite a few women biking in heels. I love the fashion here. What is weird for me is that there are no coffee shops, just cafes that are a coffee shop, bar, and food menu all in one. The wine, cheese, and bread is almost all cheap and delicious. I am proud to say that I bought my first bottle of wine from a store yesterday! Almost everyone I have met here is pretty nice, except when I try to practice my French, most people just start speaking English. One of the best parts is walking through the tall streets and then coming to another random, beautiful church or other sort of monument. Paris is a huge maze.

Photo booth in Paris metro station
I saw someone fixing one a couple days ago, just like in Amelie

Random tower we walked by, but probably not as random as I think

Normal cafe scene with lots of cigarettes

I can order coffee, food, and wine!

Today we first tried to go the the opera house made famous by The Phantom of the Opera. It would have been cool to see, but the auditorium was closed because there was rehearsal. Next we went to the small perfume museum and bought some small bottles of Fragonard perfume. I bought a bottle of perfume from there when I turned 16.

Sculpture outside the opera house
This was also in the Orsay

Next we took the metro the the Mosquee de Paris. This was probably the most challenging, but interesting part of the trip so far. There were very few tourists in this part of the city and some homeless people. The building was very intricately decorated and very different from the style of the other parts of Paris that I have seen. There was lots of north African and Middle Eastern influence in the architecture of the building as well as the food. The man selling copies of the Quaran and other books in Arabic was very nice, and showed us where the restaurant was on the other side of the mosque. He welcomed us to Muslim Paris and told us he was from Algeria. We ate some tasty couscous and some of the best mint tea I have ever had! Very few people spoke English in that area, so I had to try a little bit harder with my French.

One of the many walls decorated like this in the mosque

Gardens inside mosque

Herald next to the best cup of mint tea ever

At this point it started to pour outside and umbrellas popped up everywhere. I didn't have one; no one uses umbrellas in Seattle! We made it to the Maison Victor Hugo after a rainy walk and looked around that for a while. He is one of my favorite authors, so it was cool to see a desk that he wrote some of his novels on.

Me and Victor chillin at his house

Where all of Victor's magic happened. I'm talking about the writing of course.

Stairs in his house

Finally, we made it to the Centre Pompidou where I saw a bunch of modern paintings and sculpture. We got to walk through the Jewish district, which was definitely a change from the cathedrals and mosque that we saw. It was pretty cool to see paintings by Picasso, Matisse, and Dhali, but seeing so many museums in so few days is a bit overwhelming.

Sculpture garden across from Pompidou

Inside the Pompidou

Pretty art

Picasso

Furry painting

Cute bench

Love and art