Paris Dreams Coming True!

So another few amazing days in the city of Paris. Yesterday I went for an exploration of Marais and Montmartre. In the morning I wandered into Marais and stopped at the Hotel de Ville (city hall) because there was a winter festival going on. I saw a group of teens dancing some hip hop, very cool, and people skating on a man-made pond. So something that I need to do this year. But I will probably fall and break something so I think its best to leave it till I get to Ireland so I don't have to put my bag on my back anymore.
I wandered over to the Picasso Museum and was actually surprised to learn that he was married 3 times and had children with 2 lovers. I swear I read that he was gay. Apparently I am losing it though. Beautiful women too, and from what you can tell from his paintings, beautiful children. I was only really familiar with his cubist work and his blue period, but he was really an amazing artist. I was blown away by quite a few of his works.
After the museum I continued on my wandering, stopped at the former house of Victor Hugo, and then sat and listened to a string orchestra (are they still called an orchestra when there are only about 10 of them?) while I had a rest. It then started to rain, so like any real Parisian I headed into a cafe for a glass of wine, a yummy salade, and chocolate flan (first time eating flan and it was enjoyable, but it was chocolate so was there really any doubt I would like it?). It rained for about an hour so I quietly sat, munching my salade, sipping my wine, and reading my book. I felt very french.
Once the rain stopped I once again ventured out and took the metro to Montmartre. PS if you didn't know Montmartre is built on a huge hill, and of course all the good stuff is at the top, my butt got a workout it hasn't see since Italy. Felt the burn this morning, thats for sure!
My first stop in Montmartre was at Sacre Coeur, after passing the only inter-city winery and the oldest house in Paris, on the way there. Sacre Coeur was beautiful, but of course we weren't allowed to take pictures. I don't really understand the need for this except that the flash from continuous photographs does damage pieces of art and people are ignorant and don't know how to turn off their flashes, so the rest of us must suffer. Fortunately I'm sneaky so I have been known to take a few shots when I wasn't supposed to, if I felt they were really worth it. But I don't get the idiots that see the signs that are posted everywhere, in diagram form, and then still take pictures using a flash! They always get caught and then get all pissy about it to their friends when it was clearly posted. Or the ones that keep using their flash and aren't caught, causing damage to these pieces. I usually just want to tap them on the shoulder and tell them not to, but the few times I have they usually just give me attitude and I don't need that. So anyway, needless to say, I have no pictures of the interior of Sacre Coeur, but it did feel good to rant about that for a few minutes!
After Sacre Coeur, I made my way down the hill, past the two windmills (called Moulin in french...hey, these blogs are educational too!) and then into Place Blanche too see one of the most photographed places in Paris. The MouRou (Moulin Rouge for you non-twenty-somethings...hey, we are a lazy generation and need to find abbreviations for EVERYTHING!). It was cool. It wasn't as spetacular as it appeared in the movie, but I also expected to have Ewan run out and sweep me off my feet while singing to me, and that didn't happen either. I am still debating whether or not I want to fork out the cash to see the show or not, and any input from those that have seen it are free to give me their two cents to help me decide!
Today I ventured over to the Louvre and lost myself in there for 4 hours. I felt like I saw a fair chunk of it, but then I checked out the map of the building and realized that I only saw about one third of it, and that was just walking through, not really stopping to appreciate all the pieces that I saw. Its huge. I did see the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and The Winged Victory of Samothrace. All incredibly beautiful. The line in front of the Mona Lisa wasn't even too bad, which meant that it was just too hard to discretly take a picture of her. Just open a book though, she looks just like her picture! That's about it for today! Hugs to everyone!