Laundry day! The first, in fact, since I got here. And it took me a ridiculously long time to figure out how the machine worked. In fact, I might not have. I may go downstairs to find that my clothes just spun around for an hour without anything actually happening. Or, even better, that they all melted or combusted or met with some other spectacular death. We will see.

Anyhow, I promise that laundry isn't the only exciting thing I have to report. I actually had a ridiculously fun weekend. And, lucky you, you get to relive it with me.

:: If you've been to Paris before, you probably are familiar with Sacre Cœur, the fairy-tale white church on top of Paris's most iconic hill, Montmartre. The name refers to the sacred heart of Jesus, so this would be an extremely blasphemous place to get drunk. And yet that is what Parisian teenagers apparently do every weekend; we visited a week ago for a nighttime view of the city and saw dozens of groups on the grass and the steps, with the sound of breaking bottles every few minutes. Well, obviously we decided we had to go back and experience this tradition ourselves. So we had a little BYOB there on the grassy slope, the lights of Paris spread out before us. It was a warm and pleasant night, the cheap French wine flowed freely, and before long we were draining our last bottle.

The coolest part of the evening is that we actually talked to French people there on the hill. Several French teenagers came up and tried to sell us pot ("I have to make a living!" one of them indignantly told Silvia, in English), but we brushed them off. By two or so, however, we kind of melted into the group next to us. They were four or five French high school guys, and one of them came over to ask for a light, but we all ended up chatting. It probably had more to do with the three women I was with than with the promise of cultural exchange, but they were pretty nice, and it was fun to talk with them in a messy hybrid of French and English. We talked about Paris, and the upcoming elections, and probably a lot of other stuff I don't really remember. (As you can imagine, I wasn't really in tip-top mental form by that point.) So that was gratifying. Eventually, we tidied up our mess and all stumbled down the hill. We were ready to head to bed and so said au revoir to the others, and found our way to the night bus, the Noctilien. (The métro shuts down at night.)

As we rode, Silvia suddenly realized she didn't have her transit pass anymore. And so our adventures got an extension as we returned to still-lively Sacre Cœur to hunt it down. Miraculously, it turned up, and so we picked our way back down the hill and into the waiting arms of the Noctilien. After maybe an hour and dozens of encounters with endlessly freaky people (my god, the weird come out at night!) on the bus, we all made it home. It was about six when I finally went to bed.

:: Saturday was a day of rest. I had the triumph of finally finding that stupid human rights book in some bookstore in the latin quarter. I also had the pleasure of going to my first real French open air market, which was as lovely as I expected, and bought beautiful tomatoes and equally beautiful avocados. The real fun Saturday, however, came at night, with a delicious meal. We went for dinner in the Latin Quarter, on lovely Rue Mouffetard, but had some trouble choosing a restaurant, and finally settled on a Spanish-slash-Italian place. It was a little more expensive than we like, and when I saw the flamenco musicians inside, I thought, oh no. Tourist trap. But it wasn't at all! The place had a family feel; it seemed like everyone knew the owners. The waitress sat down and commiserated with us about being tired, and the food was absolutely delicious. With sangria, bread, appetizer, main course, dessert, and digestif the meal stretched into a relaxing three hours. It was lovely.

:: Sunday my friends and I finally went on our long-planned day trip to the Champagne region of France, where all "real" champagne by definition originates. The region is centered around the city of Reims (which is nearly impossible to pronounce right, by the way; we asked the woman at the tourist office to help us practice and are pretty close now, although she probably thought we were a little strange). Reims is a nice little country town, and I particularly enjoyed seeing somewhere else in France; somehow it's hard to imagine anything beyond Paris! Anyhow, it's very quiet and walkable, with the usual pretty little streets and churches, and an enormous cathedral which is actually quite impressive and arresting with its stained glass and impossibly high ceiling.

Lovely though they are, we were obviously there not for the visual delights of a French country town, but for champagne. A number of famous (at least, I think they are; I don't really know) champagne houses maintain their caves (literal caves, places where they let the wine age) in the town, so we went for two tours, one at Taittinger, one at Piper-Heidsieck. The Taittinger one was pretty much what we expected – trotting around the caves and looking at bottles as a guide narrated, and then a glass at the end. The second one, however, was one of the most ridiculous things I've ever encountered. They had the tour set up as a Disneyland-style "dark" ride, with little carts carrying us around the caves. Except this one didn't actually go through a working cave, but just carried us through dioramas and abstract purple-lit sculptures (which the narrating voice sternly forbade us from touching) tangentially related to champagne. The best part was when we went through a replica of a bar scene from Casablanca, because apparently they drank this brand in the movie, although we're just guessing -- they didn't really make it clear. There were also life-sized Oscar statues holding bottles of champagne. It was spectacular. As was the tasting at the end, I might add -- three varieties, including a pink one! Yum.

Anyhow, we stumbled around the town for a while after that, but it was extremely hot (still is) and so we settled into a comfy outdoor café and rested for a while. (The people of Reims apparently understand comfortable seating much better than the wicker-loving Parisians.) After dinner at France's fast food chain, Quick (in which I got to put my French skills to the test when they gave me the wrong sandwich, and probably wouldn't have tried without Vicky's support :D) we headed home, all of us sleeping on the train.

And now I have actual homework to do! And laundry to get! Zut alors! So I will bid you adieu, and of course thank you if you read this overlong entry.