This past weekend was Paris’ annual Nuit Blanche. Now what exactly is a Nuit Blanche? Literally translated it means White Night, but it’s anything but a KKK gathering or your average dinner party in Maine in the winter. In fact, in French, a nuit blanche is a night where you get not sleep. On La Nuit Blanche in Paris, there are a few dozen temporary artsy fartsy things set up all over the city. I’d read about this event, and thought it sounded pretty cool, so I was more than happy to get invited to a picnic on the Champs de Mars with Mary, followed by an outing à la Nuit Blanche.
After a bottle of wine, coupled with some cheese and apple pie, we were happy, fatter, and ready to go. Knowing that the Hôtel de Ville was the starting point, we jumped on the metro, squeezed our American touki (plural of tuckas) among about a million people, and 15 minutes later we arrived. One good thing about the metro right now is that it’s so damned hot during the day, and there are so many people there at night, that it’s about ten million degrees, and after our fifteen minute subway ride, I’m pretty sure I’d lost more weight. Damn it! Now I’m really going to need new jeans!
We got to Hôtel de Ville, and found that almost every other Parisian was there as well. Oh joy. We got our little maps and I saw that we were right near an installation called “Purple Rain.” Now, I find (the artist formerly known as) Prince/somerandomsymbolthing to be completely bizarre; however the thought of pumping thousands of gallons of water into the central courtyard of the Hôtel d’Albret, a 16th century former private house, and using purple lights to change the color, struck me as super cool. (PS- that’s a French term too.) Well, we found the site, and the line as well. We hopped in line and 2+ hours later we were still in line and about 40 feet from the door. Well, it was already one, the wine I drank earlier was long gone (I mean, my blood sugar was dropping rapidly), and we were rethinking the next hour. Go to a club and have a good time, or stick it out. Well ultimately the club won out, and we booked it. I’m sad I didn’t get to see the installation, but if I really gave a damn we could have gone to any of the other installations all over Paris that night. After all, it was only 1am, and everyone and their brother was still out and about.
I did find a couple of youtubes showing what it looked like, and I can’t like. It looked trippy and cool. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1VF7AT0B-s) and (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1VF7AT0B-s).
From there we walked to the Bastille, one of Paris’ many collegiate friendly areas and went to a club. It was packed, and we eventually left and met up with some other kids. By 2:30 it was time to make moves. Were we going to go hard and really have a nuit blanche? Or was it best to call it a night? Well since the subways ran all night (or so I thought), nobody saw it important to rush the decision making process. (Maybe that’s because it was mostly a group of PoliSci students at SciencesPo, who knows?) Well, eventually we decided to call it quits and head it home. What a shock, however, to find the subway closed! Oh, yeah, the Paris subways were not all open. Only 4 stops were left open all night long, so people could see the installations, but they couldn’t get home. Really convenient. Since the buses run almost all night, we thought we could take those. We found the stops for our respective buses, and started the wait. I’m a bit unpatient, and waiting for something was not in my schedule, so after about a half hour, I mobilized again. This time I headed back to the Hotel de Ville, where I would have to change buses anyway, so I thought I could get a jump on the system. I got there, found my bus stop (sort of by accident), and waited. Waiting with me at the bus spot was a very tall Asian girl about my age with an iPhone, or some sort of thing like an iPhone. It was pretty quiet on this little side street and then out of the blue she started talking into the phone in, for lack of a better voice, her sex voice. I don’t know if this girl was a 1-900 worker or what, but it definitely gave me a jump when I heard it!
Well about the 3rd time the sex voice materialized I decided I was going to look around and see if I was on candid camera or something. In so doing, I happened across a poster saying that the 70 bus, the one I needed, would be shut down that night because of a strike. Damned entitled Parisians having strikes that leave people stranded! What do you do when your bus is on strike? Why you start marching your ass around to find the most elusive Parisian creature: the taxi. I know, I could call them ahead of time and reserve one, but that’s too boring for me. And I have the numbers for 2 on my cell phone, and even though I called them both, I got no where. God I’m so glad I have those numbers!
So, I stood for a minute to contemplate the meaning of life and what my next action would be. I wandered for a while, crossed the Seine, recrossed the Seine, wandered more, and found myself near the Louvre, where I know there is a really popular nightclub. I also know that there are occasionally taxis there. I also know that there are people standing further up the street from you, you won’t get a taxi. Ever the wascially wabbit, I found the first person the taxis would see on their way down the street, and I went a bit more, so I was first. After 20 minutes, I was in a taxi, and cruising down the right bank of the Seine. So, in the end it wasn’t a real nuit blanche, but it 4:15 am constitutes a nuit gris, I think.
In other topics I went to a vernissage (art gallery opening) last week, to see some modern art done by one of Sydney’s friends. Now, everyone knows Sydney, and she’s quite the creature (in the best possible way), but what I didn’t know was that there are other people like her. After chatting with Dina Pickard, the artist, I realized that she’s more like Sydney than I realized. That being said, I guess I’ll work on getting Sydney off the endangered species list.
So, in general, if you’ve made it this far, nothing has happened that’s really that funny in my life. My cell phone still has cancer and is still dying a gruesome death. On a brighter note, Apple has just released the new iPhone, so that’s a good sign. This weekend the Trinity group is off to Normandy, which ought to be a good time.
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