September 28: Montmartre

[kinetic_elaboration]

Today’s adventure was going to Montmartre and slowly climbing the hill up to Sacre Coeur. I thought of this as a ‘chill day’ because it didn’t involve seeing any particular thing, I guess? But it’s not so chill because it’s going straight up a hill and also there were so many people. I guess that makes sense because the weather was nice and it was a Sunday but STILL! I was also way overdressed, accidentally, and I forgot my sunglasses. I’ve been vibing with this overcast, mid-50s, fall weather and this was just unexpectedly warm.

It was still nice, though. We didn’t go through some parts of the neighborhood that I was familiar with, and we went through some others that I’d never wandered through before. I think, especially looking back, that the number of people was kinda overwhelming for me, and made all of the other sights/sounds/smells more overwhelming too. I’m glad we made it all the way up to the top to see the view and to revisit a sort of experience I’d had a lot when I was a student here, and Montmartre was my calm/happy place. Fitting to go on a Sunday too–I’d often go there to offset the Sunday blues.

I was pretty exhausted after but we had just enough rest time before our nice French dinner, in a restaurant that was quite crowded/loud and so a little hard to talk in, but otherwise great. I always enjoy a nice dinner.

I’m starting to crash now and I don’t want to be up too late. I can’t burn the candle at all ends, even/especially on vacation. Need to shower and wind down and sleep!