Other parts of the city like Le Marais and the Latin Quarter have a funkier vibe. We loved those neighborhoods! The area around the Louvre along the Seine is very cultural and full of museums, and (as we found out on Amelia Day as we walked east of Montmartre) some parts are even pretty sketchy but hey, it's a big city so that's to be expected.
Le Marais was a great place to go to see some street and modern art as well as get lots of yummy treats. There's a section of Paris near there, the Jewish Quarter, that smells incredible and is full of falafel stands and it's where Erin and I tried some for the very first time! It was delicious and the guy at the stand even taught me to say très bon! (Very good!)
While walking around Le Marais we spotted this awesome find. It was just a mustache painted on a mirror stuck up on a wall of a little side street but we had fun posing with it! As did some other people who were curious about us facing a wall and taking pictures apparently.
Le Marais is just north of the River Seine above where the Notre Dame Island is. The main street that goes through it is Rue Saint-Martin, that goes past the Georges Pompidou Modern Art Museum and is full of funky little shops and cafes.
All around the courtyard the fountain is in there is graffiti art covering the walls, including a grid of pictures featuring famous politicians and throwing Mr. Burns from The Simpsons right in there with them, as well as this huge "sshhh"ing man on the side of a building. We also found another elephant for you Mom! A Super happy neon one in the fountain!
A hop skip and a jump away from that fountain is a church, which has turned out to be my very favorite church we've visited because of the gorgeous paper bird display they had during the time we were there. It was seriously beautiful. They also had modern paintings hung around the perimeter inside the church that were beautiful as well. We sat in there for a while listening to the organ music playing and just looking at all the birds hanging all over from the ceiling.
Here's a vid so you can get somewhat of an idea, but again it doesn't do it justice!
Just south of Le Marais is the River and on an island in the River is the famous Notre Dame Cathedral.
Behind the church there is a beautiful garden, leading to a bridge that has Love Locks covering almost every inch of it. Love locks are common on Paris Bridges (and other famous bridges around Europe as we learned in Florence) but this bridge has the most locks I've ever seen! There are mixed feelings on these locks from many different people. Some see them as a beautiful display of love and devotion, others see a "disease" on Parisian bridges. I'll let you form your own opinion but I actually think they look cool all gathered together on this bridge, and we enjoyed looking through the different locks and seeing the names and mini stories they represent. I do have to say though, it may not be the "eternal" symbol people think it is, as we didn't see many older than 2009, and suspect this tradition had become so polular they have to cut them off every couple years.
While Lindsey was here we made sure to take her to this awesome section of Paris, and we were happy to see the paper birds were still on display when we went back to the L'Eglise Saint Merry. Yay!
We also stopped by the Conaq-Jay museum, a free museum in Le Marais that has some beautiful art and artifacts, and Lindsey even saw an original painting that her parents have a print of at home!
We actually wanted to take Lindsey practically EVERYWHERE while she was here, because we were loving Paris and had seen and done so many awesome things! We may have overdone it one day when she was here when we took here to about a billion places around Paris. We started in Le Marais, did some shopping and sight seeing, then made a stop to get some super delicious pastries and eat lunch in a Parisian Park. 
The only bad thing about pastry shops in Paris is that EVERYTHING looks so beautiful and mouth-wateringly good that it's really tough to decide on one thing to get. Hence we usually ended up with more than one thing, this time we settled on an apple tart and a huge strawberry custard tart topped with a giant macaroon. De-Lish. 
Next up we went over to the island and took her to check out Notre Dame.
Even after all that we still had more planned for the day so we walked along the river over to Tuleries gardens, and took a (too short) rest before heading to the Louvre, because we felt we just hadn't done enough yet! (although I think Lindsey disagreed, sorry for the marathon Lindz!) and FYI - the Louvre is FREE on Friday evenings if you're under 26 (or can pass for it in Erin's case!) Here's a few sneak peeks of the Louvre pics, but a whole post is coming soon so don't worry!
Needless to say it was a long exhausting day but well worth it! We didn't make it to everything though, so the next day we took Lindsey up to Montmarte for a (more relaxing) day up on the Butte.
She found a beautiful painting and bought it from this fabulous street artist, and we also went up to the top of the hill and saw the Sacre Cour Church.
The view from the top of the Butte is wonderful!
Afterwards we enjoyed a well deserved wine break and leisurely afternoon at a cafe near the base of the Montmartre stairs.
While shopping in one of the many little Monrmartre shops Erin found a very cute bottle of absynthe and we decited to give a try that night. We had an excellent time setting it all up and burning sugar cubes (and yes I know it's not the "real" way but we had sugar cubes and matches and didn't have time or patience to let the water "drip" the sugar into the glasses, and it was fun to see the sugar burn and melt!) I have to say that the setting it up and on fire part was more eventful that the actual effects of the absinthe (or the grossly sweet black licorice taste), we didn't experience some crazy green fairy hallucination, but hey it's another thing to check off the "tried that" list!
For Lindsey's last day in Paris we took her to Parc Montsouris and lazed about with an array of delicious French cheeses, breads, crackers, meats and several bottles of wine. We also got her the famous sucre fleur d'oranger crepe from the best crepe stand in Paris! Check out that spread!
We finished up Lindsey's visit with one more trip to the Eiffel Tower and dinner at one of the nearby restauraunts, where Lindsey was adventerous yet again and got escargot. We all tried them and I have to say while they don't taste bad (they really just tasted like the pesto-like sauce they were covered in), I'm not such a fan of the balloon like texture.
After one last look at the sparkly Eiffel Tower we went home and got Lindsey ready to head home. We're so glad you came to visit while we were here Lindsey! We had so much fun with you and it was great to have a friendly (english speaking) friend around!
