Sangria Paradise, where foreigners drink until they think they can actually speak French.

There is nothing like being able to drink openly in the streets of Paris. No brown bag, no nervous hiding when police cars roll by, no strange looks as you carry a few open bottles of wine with you onto the metro. We bought our wine for 3 euros and headed up to see Le Moulin Rouge. The sex shops, Museum of Erotica and countless female courtisans ( to put it nicely) was exceptionally impressive as were the ceaslesse amount of men trying to pick up girls on the boulevard. We got out of there fairly quickly after we politely shunned a few shady french characters. Now, I have always imagined the Paris bars quite similar to the ones of Funny Face- where discussions of politics, religion, literature and philosophy were discussed in a smoke filled, packed basement. And being a tad nostalgic, you can only imagine my delight when we stumbled onto exactly this. Of course, this was the modern version- a small basement with steep stairs, you would have trouble climbing back out of at the end of the night, leading to a small room packed full of french students chatting amongst themselves. When we sat down, we were instantly greeted by 2 groups of frenchmen, all to willing to buy us pitchers of their infamous sangria. Now when you're in Paris- it's quite intimidating to speak french to a french person, until you've had a few... and then it pours out of you like you were soo very french you'd think you were Joanne of Arc. After we had had our fill of sangria, we left for a Scottish pub near la Sorbonne, where we stayed the rest of the night until the very early hours of the morning. And if you think Paris is beautiful at night, wait till you see the sunrise slowly creeping up the ancient buildings, cafe owners opening their doors, streets been washed down on Ile St. Louis and the bells of Notre Dame chiming so magically that in this realistic fantasy, it was Quasimodo himself striking the bells at 7. This is what I love about Paris- life to a foreigner here is surreal, you get to imagine all the clichés, history, myths and fairytales as if you were walking through it. What's not to love about that?