Sunday, October 18, 2009

Nuit Blanche



The following weekend was another free one, and very low-key, at least at the start. Then Nuit Blanche happened. Talk about a comedy of errors. In short, in French Nuit Blanche refers to an all-nighter in which you don’t sleep. Check. The entire city of Paris has exhibits all over to display new artists’ works, and some museums are open all night, etc. I ended up getting together with Brita and Sally, two old friends from Furman. We had decided to have a picnic somewhere in Paris, and this is the phone call I had with Brita before I left for Paris:

“Hey, can you bring a blanket with you when you come?”
“You want me to carry a blanket around Paris all night during Nuit Blanche?”
“Yeah, and do you have any plastic cups you can bring for the wine?”
“What? No. Stop it.”

In the end, we ended up grabbing a pizza (about the only thing that can be to-go in France) and a bottle of wine from a store, and we camped under the Eiffel Tower. This was fun in that the Eiffel Tower is lit up at night and tends to sparkle every hour. This was not fun in that the wind made it freezing and odd gypsy people were trying to sell us wine, even though we blatantly had a bottle of our own. However, on a really cool note, Sally and I have the ability to make the Eiffel Tower sparkle on command. We were getting impatient, wondering why it hadn’t lit up yet. Right as we go, “Why won’t it sparkle?!” the lights come flashing on! Everyone has a talent, I suppose. We’ve definitely found ours. We were so excited by this that we started cheering and this set off a round of cheering all around the tower. (Maybe we have two talents.) After bringing joy to the people of Paris, we decided that no night is complete without a crepe. So we got a couple and then headed off to Odeon, which was where the party was, according to another old friend Austin (the one who stayed with my family before me and came to lunch the weekend I cooked).

On the way into the subway, we ran into a group of about 30 drunk French students. We didn't think anything of this until they ended up on the same subway as us, on the same car. They were riotously singing French sports chants, or something like that and jumping up and down in glee, shaking the entire car. At every single stop of the subway, they played Chinese fire drill and ran down to the next car. It was hilarious. Naturally, the three of us HAD to follow them. We almost didn't get off at our subway stop in time.

Once we got to Odeon, we realized very quickly we weren't going to see anything anytime soon. The crush of people was insane -- there was literally an hour wait to get into the Jardin du Luxembourg, and all that there was apparently was a giant disco ball. It was kind of cool, but not worth an hour's wait. In the meantime of figuring out our next plan, we made friends with an extremely drunk French guy who started asking all about us. Sally gave him a cover story of us being Scottish (although we could have told him we were Chinese and probably gotten away with it). After a few minutes of getting creeped out, he turns his back for a second to check on his even drunker friend, and we bolted like, well, Usain Bolt.

At this point, I decided to try to head back to Versailles. Unfortunately, it was past 1 AM, so the trains weren't running anymore (although I didn't know this at the time). After attempting to find a train for a while, I ended up calling Austin, who promptly (and wonderfully) offered for me to stay with him for the night, since nothing was running. It took us nearly an hour and a half to find each other in the chaos of Paris, but we managed it eventually. Then, it only took another hour to actually find a moving vehicle that had room in it for us, take it to Austin's apartment, and stumble our way in on aching feet. My feet were literally in agony, and when I took my shoes off, I had the world's biggest blister on one foot. The next morning was NOT fun when I had to put my shoes back on my swollen feet.

Thankfully, the next morning was much less eventful. I took the subway back to La Defense (the business district) and then a morning train back to Versailles just in time for lunch. All told, a long and nerve-racking night. But it's actually kind of funny now.

I certainly wouldn't do it again though. Those blisters HURT. But more amusingly, the South Carolina blanket that I brought my family (and carried around Paris until 4 in the morning, per the request of Brita) saw about half of Paris in one night. I haven't told my French family that yet, I doubt they really want to know. :)

Update part one.

Uggh. I just got back from a really good dinner, and I'm so full/content that I might throw up. It's a paradox that even I don't understand.

Ok, so admittedly I suck at updating this blog. My bad. Here, for the two and a half loyal readers I might have, is a semi-update while I try to get the rest of my thoughts out of my head and into a Word document.

I'm going to be better at this. Be back soon. Promise.


An extract from an update that has been sitting on my computer for a week:

Plenty has been going on, and at the same time, not much, so it’s hard to know what to update. We haven’t taken a weekend trip in the past couple of weeks, so nothing on that front. But this weekend is Normandy (!), so there should be some great new pictures come Monday. We’ll be visiting the beaches where the Americans came ashore on D-Day, the American cemetery, and Mont-St.-Michel, among other things. We’re also kind of obsessed with our bus driver, Saïd (he’s awesome), and I fully expect our meal times to be as epic as the first two lunches were. Little does Madame Maiden know, there will also be more karaoke on the bus this weekend. Good times ahead.

So…updates. Not much goes on during the week. Mainly classes, dinners en famille, and the occasional trip into Paris. An entry of “a day in the life” has been requested, so that will be coming soon. And since you know me, by now you know that “coming soon” means “November.” But it will happen. I promise.

I think the last thing I updated was our trip to various chateaux. So backing up about a week and a half (maybe two).

We visited the Musee du Louvre about two weeks ago. I had been once in high school with our exchange group, but it was much more interesting to visit having actually studied some of the art since then. The only problem with the Louvre is that it’s so darn big. There are 60,000 pieces of art (and history) in what was the royal palace before Versailles was finished. So naturally, it’s enormous. And confusing to walk around, because who ever heard of a royal palace that didn’t get you lost? Right.

Anyway, it’s really impressive, but since you would need approximately 4 years, 261 days, and 12 hours to appreciate it all, a 2 hour visit was a little daunting. We were instructed to hunt down 4 paintings to take notes on (and no, the Mona Lisa was not one of them), but surprisingly, we found that 3 of the 4 were closed. What are the odds, right? We later found out that they weren’t actually closed, but rather that we were on the wrong floor. Figures. We googled them anyway. And then went to look at other paintings. But after about 2 hours, we became overwhelmed by the vast array of art before us and went to find a crepe. You do what you have to to cope. It usually involves Nutella.

The following weekend, we had completely free. It was glorious. I got to sleep past 7:30, relax, and spend time with my family. The son came home for the weekend, so we had everyone present except for the 22-year-old sister who finds it difficult to commute home for the weekend from San Francisco. Saturday consisted of being absolutely lazy, and having a late lunch with my family. Steak – so yummy.

After lunch, I made my very leisurely way to Paris and spent about 3 hours doing nothing but exploring. I took some of the walking cards I had been given and went wandering around the Louvre, Tuileries, and Place de la Concorde just taking pictures and enjoying the sights. Since it was a gorgeous day, the Tuileries were swamped, but that’s because they’re beautiful. After Paris, I came back to Versailles and had dinner with Emily at a pizza place we had found the weekend before with pretty good deals. Sunday, the entire group had lunch together as a celebration for Kirstin and Dan. They ran the Paris-Versailles, a 16k from the Eiffel Tower to the gates of the Chateau. They got a sweet t-shirt for torturing themselves, and we get a really good meal courtesy of Furman at this creperie right next to the Chateau. My dessert crepe had literally the most amazing vanilla ice cream I have ever had. Incredible.

The following Wednesday, September 30th, we had our weekly trip into Paris for the Hotel des Invalides. It, like most old monuments in France, serves 3 purposes. It has a museum, is a monument, and is a church – the holy trinity in France (ha!). Literally. If someone asks you what something is and you don’t know, we’ve found that it will always be one of those three. In addition, it still serves as a hospital for the invalid (hence the name). It was nice enough, but the entire visit was basically wandering through a war museum being told the history of weaponry from the French Revolution on. For 6 of the group, it was relatively boring. Not to mention that Napoleon had a real complex. When we went into the church section and looked at his tomb, it’s enormous. He could literally have fit into 1/3 of the lid. The tomb in its entirety could probably hold an elephant or two. Not my favorite visit, but then weapons don’t hold a ton of interest for me. Emily, however, was inspired by the clothing to create a modern day fashion line based on Napoleon’s clothes. Although that might have just been boredom in civilization class.

To be continued...