Day 7: Montmartre

On our last full day in Paris, we slept late and then took the metro to Montmartre to see the Basilica of the Sacre Couer. Brian had come here earlier in the week with his mom, but he liked it enough to come back with us. I had taken several doses of medicine and was feeling much better. We went inside the Sacre Couer, and it was just beautiful. Outside, there were lots of street preformers, so we spent some time watching them. There was one guy in particular who did amazing things with a soccer ball. After wondering around the basilica area, we headed "down the hill' through the streets of Montmartre. We stopped and got some souvenirs and headed back to the hotel.

There was one thing that I still wanted to do before I left Paris- and that was visit the Centre Georges Pompidou (museum of modern art). The kids were tired, so Brian watched them at the hotel while I went to the Pompidou Center. I enjoyed wandering around the museum without having to worry about what the kids were getting into. There were lots of interesting works here by artists such as Picasso, Kandinsky, Dalí, Matisse, and Pollock.

Since our last night in Paris was also New Year's Eve, we enjoyed a nice meal at the Pizzeria across the road from the hotel with Brian's cousin Brandon and his family. Later, Brian left with some of his cousins to go ring in the New Year at the Eiffel Tower. I was tired, though, so I stayed at the hotel with the kids.

This will be my last Paris post, so I want to take a moment to make some general reflections. First of all, I want to say that the city of Paris deserves every good word that is ever said about it. A lot of my trip report has noted where we went and what we did, but our experience was more than that. There is a different type of "mood" about Paris, and I enjoyed that so much. There are just so many little things- like the way that people dress or how people rent bikes to get around- that all add up to make Paris an interesting place. I was also so delighted to get to spend time with Brian's family. There were some in the group that I had not had the opportunity to spend much time with before, and I was so happy to get to know them. I sincerely hope that we are able to see more of Brian's family in the future.