Slowly winding down

Thursday morning was my last French class here in Paris. I was extremely sad when the class ended. I can't believe how fast the time has gone. Jean Charles was in a mood on Thursday. The Estonian student, Madli, showed up late to class and he ended up putting her on the spot and asking her to compare Estonia with France and about 5 other countries. (Today's grammar lesson was about comparisons.) In a mood or not, I will really miss Jean Charles.

After class, Nino and I headed to the Montmartre area. Tired of churches, I decided to take the lead on this afternoon. I promised Aunt Tracy that I would go to Montmartre and think of her (which I did). We visited the Musée Montmartre which was supposed to have memorabilia and history about the Montmartre area. Instead, the had an exhibit on French actor Jean Marais. And, unfortunately, Montmartre is as touristy as ever. It did remind me of Gene Kelly's character in an American in Paris though. I made Nino walk through the artist's stalls and look out on the view over the city. He was anxious to get back to a church we saw back near the Metro station. We did stop in to Our Lady of Clignancourt before getting on the Metro and heading back to the apartment.

On Thursday evening, Nino and I went took a dinner cruise on the Bateau Mouche. We got dressed up and took the Metro to the Alma-Marceau station. We had an amazing evening cruising along the river, seeing the city lit up, and listening to the live pianist and singer. Admittedly, the food could have been better. But since I had about half a bottle of champagne it was fine with me. Towards the end of the cruise, we went to the top of the boat so we could see the Eiffel Tower as we cruised by a second time.

We also watched an older couple celebrating either a birthday or anniversary get up and dance as the violinist played just for them during dessert. I got tears in my ears watching them.

We couldn't have had a better evening. Except for the time when Nino decided to make a face when I took a picture of us; it was the best photo of the night of me and it's pretty much unusable because of his funny face. He did make it up to me by buying an expensive cruise photo (also a phenomenal pic of the two of us) to remember the awesome evening.