September 14th

Ah the last day, what sweet sorrow. The morning was actually full of sorrow, especially from my head. Little piece of advice, riding the metro groggy is best done sitting down rather than stumbling on your feet. Kate and I met Paula at Galerie Lafayette, after some mind numbing coffee of course, and the shopping day began. There were so many floors with so many clothes with so many expensive price tags, just crazy. I think my jaw dropped more times there than at Champs de Lycée. In any case the only floor where I bought anything was the souvenir area by the cafeteria. I picked up some green tea, a metro decorated bag, and a French planner. I know, what an extravagant spender. Paula actually made use of the designer labels by purchasing a beautiful purse from Longchamps. I could never do the same but as purses go it is fantastic. I then suggested that we have a tea break at Angelina's, a tea room in Galerie Lafayette.

From prior experience I knew that Angelina's had the best hot chocolate in the world and I was craving some. Of course I regretted it an hour later when my stomach was turning knots, but it was definitely worth it. Kate and I shared hot chocolate while Paula had some tea. The hot chocolate is more of a smooth liquid syrup with rich flavor and no awful aftertaste. It was delicious, and I had some Sprite later to calm my tummy so no harm done.

After we had exhausted ourselves from going into shock from prices we left for Sacre Cœur, which involved some metro line switches. I successfully navigated us to the correct stop of which I was very proud. There we dodged the illegal, and annoying, merchants and scaled the steps to the giant church. We actually went to Place du Tertre, the artist's block, first before going into Sacre Cœur. All the artwork was beautifully done but like anything else it was expensive. We picked up a few souvenirs from the local shops, I bought some coasters, but no Parisian paintings.

Sacre Cœur then offically happened, which turned out to be lovely. They were holding some sort of service where everyone constantly sang along with this choir of traditional nuns. It was overwhelming at parts, due to the surge of conservatism, but still beautiful. The architecture was what I admired the most, especially the hollow dome. We sat down for a few minutes to rest and enjoy the music. I admit that I almost fell asleep, the pew was comfortable, but managed to remaining conscience.

I suppose that I was hungry which turned out fine since dinner happened at a place called La Pierrade right after. I had some nicely cooked cod with mashed potatos. That meal was probably my favorite the whole trip. What can I say, I love good cod. We did become lost for about twenty minutes after dinner, Paris road signs are purposely hidden behind trees to confuse tourists, but eventually we found our way and took the metro home. All of us packed our things, mis-en-place for the next morning, and passed out. What an exhausting, yet satisfying day. Too bad it was our last in Paris.