Paris Day 3: Sacré Coeur, Chaos, and Dessert!!

Our third day in Paris, I woke up with quads on FIRE. Two days of riding bikes all over the city was taking its toll on my non-biker legs. They were screaming at me. I could feel the microtears in my muscles with every step. Did I mention that I was sick for the duration of our time in Europe? 'Cause I was. I felt so guilty, staying in people's homes and coughing/sneezing/sniffing all over their hospitality. Our plan for the day was to head to northern Paris to the flea market at Saint Ouen and then to Montmartre area. The combination of my quads, my sickness, the distance to our destinations, and the fact that it was raining outside, decided us on a metro travel day.

We headed out for Saint Ouen where Brandon got to be accosted by sellers of faux-everything. Most of my experiences at Saint Ouen were solo (once solo at night--awful and scary idea), and having a black male at my side definitely decreased the amount of sketchy people trying to force interaction on us. With the history of my Saint Ouen experiences, I insisted we leave our camera equipment safe at our flat. Saint Ouen is enormous, and, since we had no plans of carting large antiques with us for the duration of our trip, we walked a relatively small part of the market. Hunger and rain drove us away from Saint Ouen and on toward Sacré Coeur and Montmartre.

The view of Paris from Sacré Coeur is pretty amazing, not to mention to the basilica itself. The walk up is a workout (for those of us too cheap to pay for the funicular). Thankfully, I had warned Brandon of the aggressive bracelet men who lurk on the steps (so many steps), start tying a friendship bracelet around your wrist, and force you to pay them afterwards, even though it's unsolicited. These guys don't take "no" for an answer. Thanks to my experience in the city, I have developed what I call my "metro face." It's basically a facial expression that would translate roughly to "Touch me and I'll kill you." It's worked wonders for me in throwing off the American stereotype of loud, fat, smileyness, and in deterring the aggressive males that plague Paris.
Don't be fooled by the smiles in the below pictures. I can throw off a happy face faster than you can say "stranger danger."

 

As many times as I've visited Sacré Coeur, this was my first time going inside, and thus, I was unaware of the stricter rules governing behavior inside the basilica. In tourist-ridden places like Notre Dame, cameras are flashing, people are talking, and actual worshippers are in the minority. If you're Parisian, going to worship in silence at Notre Dame would be somewhat like partaking of the sacrament in the nursery. However, this phone shot earned me quite a lecture from the caretaker of the basilica. He also raised his voice to indignantly chastise everyone else in the nave, saying that this was a sacred place of worship, and to put away our phones.

Chastised for an extremely unflattering shot

 Even though I felt chastised, I was actually very happy to encounter such such respect and reverence for a place deemed sacred. It was refreshing to experience that in such a secular-minded country.

Speaking of the secular and material, our next stop was to a mall outside the city. Why would we go to such lengths to shop when there is shopping all over Paris, you ask? Only one response makes sense:
PRIMARK.
Never heard of Primark? That's probably because you live in America. Primark is a clothing store based in Ireland that I became acquainted with during my study abroad in Wales. I don't care to say how much Primark merchandise I came home with from that study abroad, but suffice it to say, I needed an extra bag. This store in Villeneuve la Garenne (Saint Denis area) had opened a month prior to our arrival in Paris, but when we arrived at the mall, there was a line hundreds and hundreds of feet long--looping around, down the stairs, looping around again. I've never seen anything like it. Especially when the store had already been open a whole month.
There was a line for the line. They were only letting a couple people into the store at a time, and the sight inside the store was no less chaotic.

 I wasn't feeling well that day, and our claustrophia-inducing shopping expedition did nothing but aggravate that. Even though I was excited to return to Primark after a wish to do so for the past five years, it made me slightly sick to see the craze inspired by nothing more than fabric. It was like Black Friday times 20.
Once we got back into Paris with our wares, we stopped by the supermarket (my favorite thing to do in foreign countries!). Among other things, I happened upon this:

Banoffee!!!!

 Once again, if you don't know what banoffee is, it's likely because we live in America. Banoffee is my dessert of choice, thanks, once again, to Wales. It's pie made of banana, toffee, and moist graham cracker crust. To help you grasp my love for banoffee, perhaps this picture will help, since it shows how I finished off my own piece as well as three other people's pieces in Edinburgh.

It is a powerful demonstration of my love for Brandon that I let him have one of the two banoffees when I could have easily eaten 4 or 5 alone. We ate them at home while stunning our fellow Argentine housemates with the knowledge that we're married, and Brandon is only 22.
Mormons, amirite?