Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Paris, Day 8 – Montmartre and Goodbye


On Thursday July 12 we woke up, had breakfast and started packing. This was quite a challenge: even though I had brought a bag and a suitcase, I still had a lot of new things to bring home! After some struggling, we managed to pack everything!
Packing all my stuff! Unbelievable we managed to take everything back with us!

I checked the room at least three times and then it was really time to say goodbye. I really loved our room, I even snapped some last pictures of it. We arrived downstairs and checked out. It was the first time I could officially use my credit card to pay for the hotel! We were allowed to leave our suitcases in the hotel lobby and we went on our way to spend some last time in Paris.
Our last outfits! It was a bit colder this day.

We passed the pink Hello Kitty shop not far from our hotel and my mom decided to go inside, where she fell head over heels in love with an adorable teddy bear! She decided to buy it and take pictures of it on our next trip. ^^ My mom called the little bear Amélie. ♥
The Hello Kitty shop! Even though almost everything was Hello Kitty,
my mom still managed to buy something non-Hello Kitty! XD

We went on our way to Montmartre. Last year we wanted to go to the café from the movie Amélie, but it was closed. We decided to see if it was opened this time!
We arrived at station Abbesses, but even though I had a map with me, I had no idea where to go (Montmartre has so many little streets). We passed a really cool pink shop and asked for directions in the pharmacy next to it. The (quite uninterested) woman directed me to Rue Lepic. We quickly found the street and walked downhill. We passed some foodshops, including one that sold sea animals. I’m not a big fan of huge, dead crabs. -_-‘
We arrived at Café des Deux Moulins and it was opened! Yay~!
The café looks much more inviting when it’s opened! XD

Of course we went inside and we chose a table a bit in the back. I somehow squeezed myself to my chair (the tables were very close to each other) and we received a menu. It was so funny to read: there was a whole list of special cocktails based on characters from the movie! For example: a crazy Amélie consisted of vodka, lemon juice, grenadine and apple juice. There was also a special Amélie menu: a hot drink with a crême brulée. We chose the Amélie menu with hot chocolate. ^^
The hot chocolate mugs were really cute: some chocolate was poured along the sides, creating a creative, flowerlike effect. The crême brulée was delicious! I used to not really like this dessert, but now I love it!
I tried to do the famous Amélie pose. ^^

We enjoyed our food very much! It was also fun to see so many people around us taking pictures of the café. All movie fans. ^^ It was also cool to see what things were really used in the movie and what not. The sigaretshop wasn’t there, but the long bar of course was!
We left the café again and followed the Rue Lepic to the closest metrostation. We arrived at an intersection and just when we wanted to cross the road I looked behind me and saw the famous Moulin Rouge! O_O I was so surprised! The location is so weird: at a busy, grey street!
We decided to take some pictures of it, but then my mom’s battery died. Luckily my camera still worked!
So, me in front of the Moulin Rouge in all its… glory?

On the picture, I’m standing on a big air grid (is that the right word? Well, air was blown upwards). I asked my mom, who was wearing a skirt, jokingly if she wouldn’t come stand next to me. And she did! She hadn’t noticed the air stream! Awkward moment followed. XD
We walked into metrostation Blanche and went to Sacré Coeur. When we arrived at the station, we discovered another Photomaton and we decided to take our last series of pictures!
While walking up to Sacré Coeur through the shopping street, we bought some chocolates. We also browsed some souvenirshops (I accidentally broke a piece of a magnet, oops!). I bought an awesome t-shirt, which was quite difficult: I wanted a shirt with blue and white stripes in size 3 or 4, but the shop man constantly brought me a shirt that ressembled the one I liked, but wasn’t the same. Eventually he found the right one, yay!
We decided to go up the hill with the Funiculaire, the little train. We could use our Navigos for it, which came in handy. ^^
When we got out of the Funiculaire, we sat down on some benches to enjoy the view.
The view from Sacré Coeur is so amazing..!

While we were eating our chocolates, a street performer was doing his routine: he did tricks with a football. He even climbed up a lamp post while balancing the ball on his head!
We decided to leave our benches and we sat down in the middle of the stairs in front of Sacré Coeur.
My mom in front of Sacré Coeur.

We sat down for a while when it suddenly started to rain. We put our umbrellas above our heads and remained seated. It was quite nice just sitting there, looking at the dark clouds hanging above Paris.
Our feet have been in many places in Paris by now!

We decided to browse a near souvenirshop briefly, after which we took the Funiculaire down again (yes, we were lazy).
We decided to eat crêpes for the last time! We both chose lemon and sugar (the crêpes weren’t freshly made. The baker just heated a pre-made one. Such s scam! XD)
We ♥ crêpes!

We sat down on some benches on the little square with the carrousel (avoiding the string men). A bunch of bold birds hipped up to us and we feeded them some crêpe. One pigeon almost pulled my mom’s crêpe out of her hands!
After we finished our crêpes, we decided it was time to take some pictures with our new beary friend Amélie.
Isn’t she cute? ^^ We asked an Asian girl to take a picture of us. I wonder
if she was surprised to see us with a teddybear..?

We left the square again and looked a bit around in the shops again. We found an amazing shop with gorgeous serving trays and also a little department with Kimmidolls! My mom bought us both a keychain, so cute! ♥
It was time to go back to the hotel and grab our suitcases: we wanted to have plenty of time before we had to catch the Thalys train.
We arrived at our metrostation for the last time, took the escalator for the last time and looked at the boulangerie for the last time. I hate goodbyes. :(
We said goodbye to the hotel staff and dragged our suitcases to the metrostation. We had plenty of time, so we did everything slowly.
While on our way to Gare du Nord, I had a strange incident in the metro. A weird and obviously drunk man was being annoying and tried to draw my attention by constantly putting up his middle finger at me. I saw it, but tried to pretend as if I didn’t. Then, after a while, he got out of the metro and the doors closed. I felt relieved, but the metro didn’t start driving yet. Then, he went to stand in the window opposite of me and continued to give me the middle finger and pointing at me as if he wanted to say: ‘I keep my eyes on you!’ I looked at him sarcastically: I didn’t want to lower myself to his level. Then he started yelling in French: ‘Go back to your own country!’. It felt weird, since I was going back to my country. XD I was glad the metro started driving then. What if he had come inside or something? I still don’t know if it was really me he was talking to, or the coloured man next to me. But I am sure he would have protected me if the crazy guy had come back inside, I could see he braced himself. Weird huh!? The things you experience in Paris…
We arrived at Gare du Nord, dragged our suitcases with us and went up the escalator. Now it was only a matter of time before the big sign would tell us where our train would arrive. After a while, our train appeared.
Our train would depart at 18:25h (6:25 pm).

As you can see on the picture, our train would depart at 18:25h, number 9375. The only downside was that there would be another train at the same time with number 9475. Of course, these two would depart from the same station! We really had to make sure we would take the right one!
With our last money I bought us both a tuna salad sandwich (which was totally delicious) and a bottle of coke for in the train.
Our luggage. It’s amazing we managed to bring everything back with us!

It was time to go to our platform and we managed to get in the train easily, although we did need some help with our suitcases. Then, the train started driving and we said goodbye to Paris for the third time.
After a couple of hours, we arrived at Amsterdam Central with a 30 minute delay (although they told us it was only 20 minutes. Those jerks! They just didn’t want to refund us) and we returned to our city by train, together with my father who had come to pick us up. It had been an amazing trip to Paris, once again!

Thank you all so much for reading and for your great comments! Due to certain circumstances it took me a long time to finish these posts. An outfit and purchases post is coming up! I hope you enjoyed my travel posts, because soon there will be new ones…
I can tell you I’ve had some exciting things in these past few weeks too! Please look forward to them! Thanks again for reading! ♥

3 comments:

  1. You had the same thought as me concerning to moulin rouge XD disappointing~

    Is so sad to say goodbye to a place we like ;__;

    Thanks for sharing!

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    Replies
    1. Haaa, I'm not the only one! XD

      Yeeeeeeeeeeeees! :(

      Haha, you're welcome(?). ^^

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  2. Wow - what a trip! I'm so glad you're so detailed with these posts and have tons of pictures! It really feels like I was with you guys xD Sad to see the trip end but there will always be more! Thank you for sharing :3
    Kieli~♥

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