so amy and i returned to the hexagon on the 31st to meet up with some of my friends and ring in the new year. we figured, hey paris is cool right? so we'll just do a nuit blanche and not worry about hotels and hostels for the 31st...amy and i dropped our stuff in the lockers in the Gare de Lyon and set out to find Christine and Nick, who had arrived earlier that morning. even though it had just been a week of looking at sidewalks and avoiding eye contact, it was surprisingly refreshing to be able to people-watch openly again and to goof around in the streets without attracting (too much) attention. i was SO HAPPY to be back in the bastille neighborhood! i felt like i was back home, and i wish i could have spent more that 2 days in Paris...i miss it...so with christine and nick (their first time in paris, aww) we did the Musee Picasso and then picked up Mandy, who was coming in from Montpellier, at the train station. since we had the whole night ahead of us, we decided to just wander up the Seine in the direction of the Tour Eiffel, stopping along the way for nick to take pictures (he's a photographer with some hardcore equipment, which i had the luck of carrying later on in the night ).
we went to the Hotel de Ville, where the outdoor skating rink was set up, and nick made friends with this incredible/bizarre little boy. nick wanted to get a shot of him watching the skaters, so he checked for permission with the mom in his pretty much nonexistent french (he moved here to live with gf christine and is kinda picking up french as he goes, but it's cool that he came here at all, all things considered)...the kid totally ate up the spotlight, swiped nick's camera, snapped dozens of his own pix, then swiped nick's hat and started tektonking. with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. his mom was all "you'd look a lot cuter if you could keep your tongue in your mouth!"...it was strange, i felt bad that we had unintentionally riled the kid up and then just peaced out, but whatever. oh, and the best part about the dancing-tongue-hanging-out moment was that he was wearing a face paint eye patch as well.
we then made our way to Notre Dame, which was spectacular with the Christmas tree outside and the early-evening darkness and the street lamps. it was a little bit of leftover christmas magic! there was a mime-dancer dude doing his thing in the plaza in front of the church, so of course we paused to watch. personally, things like that always creep me out, so i was less than thrilled when nick set up to start shooting him...and even less thrilled when that provoked the mime guy to yell at all of us for watching and taking pix without donating. never mind the fact that nick DID give him money. so that ruined the mood and the dancing man quickly lost his audience.
from there we walked to the quartier latin to find food, but instead we found break dancers in the street...they were good and not bitter at the world. we ended up eating a hassled meal of really bad chinese food (paris + holiday = NOT FUN), then found a tunisian bakery (miam!) and kept walking to the Tour. from then on the night is just a blurry mess - generally paris was boring and overpriced for the holiday. we went to the Tour Eiffel thinking there would be something going on, judging from the number of people in the streets, but there was nothing- no music, no fireworks (just a few personal firecrackers), no count-down, just the every-hour-on-the-hour sparkling. ugh. so we had out own count-down (5 minutes late) and sang Auld Lang Syne (sp?) and toasted to ourselves...and cheered again at 6am(new years EST) and 9am (pacific time for mandy)...i have to admit that for one night people on the street were much more friendly than normal for paris - there were "bonne annees!" par tout and several random encounters with other people out celebrating. we made our own fun for the night, running around St Germain and the Latin Quarter; thankfully nick is super-high energy and kept us going and it wasnt too cold, either. we had thought that bars would be fun for hanging out and enjoying the parisian atmosphere, but everywhere prices were marked up at least 3 times (10E cup of coffee?!) and there wasnt anything really going on to warrant paying so much...and somehow we just never made it to a club or anything...apparently we should have been on the Champs but whatever. we holed up in a cafe for a while, eating mousse au chocolat (cheapest option) while the surly owner shot us looked of hate. whatever, it's not like his business was hopping at that point anyway and we certainly werent preventing other customers from coming in...seriously, this was a guy that gives paris a bad name -we walked in, first thing he said, in english, was "no coffee here. no tea." and then he didnt bring a drink menu, just food. and he refused to bring a carafe d'eau, so we had to buy vittel. and of course when we were leaving there was a girl sitting with a big steamy cafe au lait. what a jerk.
so the nuit blanche was an..interesting...experience, and i would not recommend paris to anyone looking for a new years party unless youre super well-off or have an apartment. the saddest part was that we eagerly holed up in starbucks basically as soon as it opened, after riding the metro for free to stay warm ( we were soo homeless by the end of the night) and relished the warmth, big drinks and comfy seats...
during the rest of our time there, we went to see 'we own the night' (VO for nick!), did some shopping, visited the neighborhoods where amy and i hung out a lot during our semester abroad, went to Shakespeare & Co, ate falafel!! and visited with TANNNYAAA!! yah, i finally got to see her, after thinking that we weren't going to cross paths in france, on 2 jan - we all went out for beers and crepes, walked to the Louvre at night to see the pyramids, and hung out in the hotel (everyone but me and amy were in a great hotel right by the bastille. out ghetto hostel was out at mairie de clichy and was not fun)...then tanya came back to valence with me and mandy on the 3rd, we showed her around, cooked in mandy's new apartment, satisfied our tasse et glace cravings...that was, no doubt, the highlight of my vacation!
we went to the Hotel de Ville, where the outdoor skating rink was set up, and nick made friends with this incredible/bizarre little boy. nick wanted to get a shot of him watching the skaters, so he checked for permission with the mom in his pretty much nonexistent french (he moved here to live with gf christine and is kinda picking up french as he goes, but it's cool that he came here at all, all things considered)...the kid totally ate up the spotlight, swiped nick's camera, snapped dozens of his own pix, then swiped nick's hat and started tektonking. with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. his mom was all "you'd look a lot cuter if you could keep your tongue in your mouth!"...it was strange, i felt bad that we had unintentionally riled the kid up and then just peaced out, but whatever. oh, and the best part about the dancing-tongue-hanging-out moment was that he was wearing a face paint eye patch as well.
we then made our way to Notre Dame, which was spectacular with the Christmas tree outside and the early-evening darkness and the street lamps. it was a little bit of leftover christmas magic! there was a mime-dancer dude doing his thing in the plaza in front of the church, so of course we paused to watch. personally, things like that always creep me out, so i was less than thrilled when nick set up to start shooting him...and even less thrilled when that provoked the mime guy to yell at all of us for watching and taking pix without donating. never mind the fact that nick DID give him money. so that ruined the mood and the dancing man quickly lost his audience.
from there we walked to the quartier latin to find food, but instead we found break dancers in the street...they were good and not bitter at the world. we ended up eating a hassled meal of really bad chinese food (paris + holiday = NOT FUN), then found a tunisian bakery (miam!) and kept walking to the Tour. from then on the night is just a blurry mess - generally paris was boring and overpriced for the holiday. we went to the Tour Eiffel thinking there would be something going on, judging from the number of people in the streets, but there was nothing- no music, no fireworks (just a few personal firecrackers), no count-down, just the every-hour-on-the-hour sparkling. ugh. so we had out own count-down (5 minutes late) and sang Auld Lang Syne (sp?) and toasted to ourselves...and cheered again at 6am(new years EST) and 9am (pacific time for mandy)...i have to admit that for one night people on the street were much more friendly than normal for paris - there were "bonne annees!" par tout and several random encounters with other people out celebrating. we made our own fun for the night, running around St Germain and the Latin Quarter; thankfully nick is super-high energy and kept us going and it wasnt too cold, either. we had thought that bars would be fun for hanging out and enjoying the parisian atmosphere, but everywhere prices were marked up at least 3 times (10E cup of coffee?!) and there wasnt anything really going on to warrant paying so much...and somehow we just never made it to a club or anything...apparently we should have been on the Champs but whatever. we holed up in a cafe for a while, eating mousse au chocolat (cheapest option) while the surly owner shot us looked of hate. whatever, it's not like his business was hopping at that point anyway and we certainly werent preventing other customers from coming in...seriously, this was a guy that gives paris a bad name -we walked in, first thing he said, in english, was "no coffee here. no tea." and then he didnt bring a drink menu, just food. and he refused to bring a carafe d'eau, so we had to buy vittel. and of course when we were leaving there was a girl sitting with a big steamy cafe au lait. what a jerk.
so the nuit blanche was an..interesting...experience, and i would not recommend paris to anyone looking for a new years party unless youre super well-off or have an apartment. the saddest part was that we eagerly holed up in starbucks basically as soon as it opened, after riding the metro for free to stay warm ( we were soo homeless by the end of the night) and relished the warmth, big drinks and comfy seats...
during the rest of our time there, we went to see 'we own the night' (VO for nick!), did some shopping, visited the neighborhoods where amy and i hung out a lot during our semester abroad, went to Shakespeare & Co, ate falafel!! and visited with TANNNYAAA!! yah, i finally got to see her, after thinking that we weren't going to cross paths in france, on 2 jan - we all went out for beers and crepes, walked to the Louvre at night to see the pyramids, and hung out in the hotel (everyone but me and amy were in a great hotel right by the bastille. out ghetto hostel was out at mairie de clichy and was not fun)...then tanya came back to valence with me and mandy on the 3rd, we showed her around, cooked in mandy's new apartment, satisfied our tasse et glace cravings...that was, no doubt, the highlight of my vacation!
highlight of 08: reunion with tanya
nick and mandy: too cool for school at Kilty's in Paris
mouflons in the cold
feeding birds in front of notre dame
paris will never get old
we'll see how this works out. so far people are respecting the smoking ban
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