September 2, 2000

First stop: the post office, to get a largy jiffy bag to mail home to myself used clothes. An American woman waiting her turn told me I had to get a number from the machine. Even when she was the only customer there, another time, the clerk wouldn't wait on her unless she had a number!

We were especially touched by the French politeness toward their young. Two women made way for the little girl (2 or 3?) with them, pushing a doll stroller. One of the women said to the child, "Excusez-moi, madame."

I had originally wanted to take in Montmartre on Sunday because of the song "The Morning Music of Montmartre" (from the show Oh, Captain)

The morning music of Montmartre

Creates a certain feeling,

And Sunday morning in Montmartre

Is when it's most appealing,

but a guidebook said that many things are closed on Sundays so we chose the Montmartre trip for Saturday. Got our first carnet, or week's supply, of Metro tickets, and the young woman in the booth gave me a map, which she marked. Take "our" purple line, #8 in the direction of Creteil and change at Concorde for the #12 (green) line toward Porte de la Chapelle and get out at Abbesses. The Metro sign there is one of the original ones designed by Guimard. We took the Funiculaire up past the famous steps of Montmartre toward Sacre Coeur. Unfortunately, there were still more steps up beyond that! Quite a challenge for height-phobic and stair-phobic me! I envisioned taking a wrong step and hurtling down the steps and the huge hill to the bottommost plateau of Montmartre! Bernard patiently held on to me, and we went inside the beautiful church, including down in the crypt. I noted the small sub-chapels dodwn there, each devoted to a single saint; as in medicine, there are specialists!

After we went back down on the Funiculaire, it started to rain, so we waited out part of it in a pharmacy. To express our appreciation for their hospitality, I bought a lipstick (which I called forever after Montmartre Red), and toothbrushes. [As a result, it became our tradition to always buy our toothbrushes in Paris, going from, "Now that we're in Paris, let's do the traditional thing and buy toothbrushes" to "We're low on toothbrushes, let's go to Paris." "Sounds good to me!"] Then we went to lunch at the nearby Le Ronsard. By the time we finished eating, the rain had stopped. Out for some souvenirs, another disposable camera, and some exploration of the area, I was amazed at how many fabric stores there are in rapid succession in the streets below the church.

Back to our hotel to rest, especially in view of the bad cough Bernard has had since before we left. He got more rest than I did. I had to rush off to a nearby pharmacy to see what remedies I could get, realized I'd left the francs back in our room, returned to the hotel, then back to the pharmacy before they closed at 8! In the midst of this, I got some unexpected practice in French, medical French to be exact. Once we were both rested, we went to dinner at a place across the street from the Metro entrance, Comptoir 7e.