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. :)