October 1st, my one month anniversary, Paris holds la Nuit en Blanche across its quartiers. This is an annual all-night or night-time arts festival with museums, private and public art galleries, and other cultural institutions open and free of charge, with the centre of the city hosting art installations, performances (music, film, dance, performance art), themed social gatherings, and other activities. With a night bus service and two metro lines open all night to ensure that the thousands of attendees make it home safely, supposedly. So we took a girly trip to Montmartre for dinner and then explored the area, climbing to the Sacré-Coeur to see Paris by night, watching contemporary films and seeing various pieces of art, generally soaking up the lively atmosphere of Montmartre's busy streets and pretty nights. We watched one dance spectacle in a school courtyard which was decorated beautifully with fairy lights and lanterns. Various dancers (hip-hop, can-can, flamenco, rock n roll, contemporary, belly dancers etc) came out together listening to their type of music with their own set of headphones, so as the audience we couldn't hear what they were dancing to. They managed to dance around and within each other, each to the beat of the music in their ears, so kinda like a silent disco! The public did have the opportunity to have a set of headphones as well to join in, but as you can imagine the queue was ridiculous, plus it was quite entertaining watching everyone dance to no music! Lovely event.
We then headed to Hotel de Ville, where there wasn't really much going on, so walked to Georges Pompidou centre where we stumbled across a very lively brass band which had attracted a large crowd of people dancing. The group were so good! Played lots of well known songs and had everyone dancing, we really enjoyed it there, just being a part of it all. It got to about 2am and we thought we had better try making our way home. Get a metro/train as far out of Paris as we could and then get a taxi, it can't be hard, everyone does it! But it all went a bit down hill from there...
First stop, grab a drink because we were so thirsty from walking around, so we just nipped into Quick (French fast food restaurant- Halal too fyi) where there was a huuuge queue, but an express takeaway booth was open so we headed there, only to be told that the till was closing so we would have to join the long queue. 20 minutes later, the girl infront of us took the last bottle of water, there was no juice, or soft drinks apart from coke and sprite so we had to make do with that ( I gave the server one of my looks and moaned that I had been waiting too long and this wasn't good enough, so he gave us a large for the price of a small haha! I'm so good ) He was lovely actually, I felt a bit bad! So that ticked us off a bit, but we headed out to Chatelet metro station which was open all night.
However, with about 5 entrances, only one being open, we walked around for about 10 minutes trying to find how to get down to the station, trying to flag down taxi's at the same time but that just wasn't happening. Eventually got on the tube to where we needed to be to get a train to Montparnass station. Bus was packed, and incredibly slow. We were on it for about 40 mins just doing a tour of Paris, then got told to get off and get on to the 'other' bus; which sounds like it would be obvious, but no sireee. Stressed trying to find this other bus to complete our journey, still trying to flag taxis, trying to ring taxis but getting hung up on (seriously, so rude!) and getting more tired and frustrated, we made it onto another bus for another 30 minute journey around Paris, taking us past everything we had seen that night already! Bus was packed,very uncomfortable. Arrived at Gare Montparnass about 4am (yes, two hours later) and figured at this hour we may as well get the train back to campus! Ran in to see if we could find times, found out that a night bus to Versailles was due to depart right then, ran out and got to the bus just as its doors were closing! Close call, but we made it onto the bus, which was warm at least but again quite busy. An hour later, arrived at Versailles train station and waited for the 6.08 train back to Jouy-en-Josas, climbed up the hill back to campus, and it was half past six. FOUR AND A HALF HOURS LATER we had made it back!! Ok, so we didn't pay any more as we used our travel passes, but still, the whole palava of getting out of Paris was ridiculous. The roads were so busy, no taxi's, no clear signs for tube stations or buses... How are you supposed to host a night for the whole or Paris if you can't even proide efficient transport home for them?! As the morning drew near, the three of us girls were getting more and more frustrated and tired, and snappy and ratty with each other! I am so sorry girls!
So that was our first adventure in Paris at night. We hadn't even been drinking or clubbing and yet we were rocking up at half six in the morning. I must admit though, depsite all this, I had such a wonderful evening, and at least we have as story to tell and have learnt to either plan our route home or pre-book a taxi for next time!
After a two hour sleep, well, nap more like, I had to get up to meet someone for a lift to church. I enjoyed the service, but was a bit disappointed because it was an all English church. I really want to find a French church, that's why I am here after all! Its really hard to speak French during the weekends so at least it would be a way of exposing myself to French and getting involved in a French community. But we'll see.
Discovered that you can actually buy all you need in the Versailles markets! Kicking myself for having spent loads of money travelling around trying to find household items when I could have just got them for one euro at the market! But I guess its worth knowing, was nice just wandering around in the sunshine in Versailles. Unfortunately the gardens at the Chateau weren't free because of an exhibition, otherwise that would have been great to walk around them in the sunshine. I have decided that Versailles is better than Paris for most things. Its easier and cheaper to get to, there are all kinds of shops and markets, lots of nicely preserved culture, less busy, cleaner, just a generally more pleasant atmosphere. Don't get me wrong, Paris is great, but it is very busy and dirty, and the people are quite rude!
I was fortunate enough to go with Sylvia to her HEC executive education celebration event at the Musée des Arts Forains; a private museum of funfair objects which you can have a go on. It was great, felt like being in some kind of Alice in Wonderland type dream with all the horse figurines around and music, swanky buffet, sweets and general fun atmosphere! Check out the website: http://www.pavillons-de-bercy.com/popup.htm.
POW this week was fun. The theme was dressing up as the opposite sex! So we had lots of fun dressing up as guys, but unfortunately the night was cut short when a group of drunk students decided to surround my friend and each throw beer all over her. We were all furious, who does that? We cornered one of them and he apologised profusely saying it was just 'tradition', but that still isn't acceptable. Why are people so stupid?!
The highlight of my week had to be Zumba though. I had never done it before, so was really excited for it, and it was so much fun! I have never known a man to be so smooth with his hips the way the instructor was! Lots of fun, lots of booty shaking and a great workout! Can't wait to go again.
Work is still fine. It makes me laugh that I, in fact, haven't still been trained properly! There are still things which I don't know how to solve/ do, they ask me if I know how to do something/where something is kept and I have to hold back my laughter when I explain 'No, I have no idea about anything!!!'. We are another staff member down again this week which will be challenging again.
As a round off to my month here, I though I would just end this post by noting some of the things I have learned/ discovered since being here:
After a two hour sleep, well, nap more like, I had to get up to meet someone for a lift to church. I enjoyed the service, but was a bit disappointed because it was an all English church. I really want to find a French church, that's why I am here after all! Its really hard to speak French during the weekends so at least it would be a way of exposing myself to French and getting involved in a French community. But we'll see.
Discovered that you can actually buy all you need in the Versailles markets! Kicking myself for having spent loads of money travelling around trying to find household items when I could have just got them for one euro at the market! But I guess its worth knowing, was nice just wandering around in the sunshine in Versailles. Unfortunately the gardens at the Chateau weren't free because of an exhibition, otherwise that would have been great to walk around them in the sunshine. I have decided that Versailles is better than Paris for most things. Its easier and cheaper to get to, there are all kinds of shops and markets, lots of nicely preserved culture, less busy, cleaner, just a generally more pleasant atmosphere. Don't get me wrong, Paris is great, but it is very busy and dirty, and the people are quite rude!
I was fortunate enough to go with Sylvia to her HEC executive education celebration event at the Musée des Arts Forains; a private museum of funfair objects which you can have a go on. It was great, felt like being in some kind of Alice in Wonderland type dream with all the horse figurines around and music, swanky buffet, sweets and general fun atmosphere! Check out the website: http://www.pavillons-de-bercy.com/popup.htm.
POW this week was fun. The theme was dressing up as the opposite sex! So we had lots of fun dressing up as guys, but unfortunately the night was cut short when a group of drunk students decided to surround my friend and each throw beer all over her. We were all furious, who does that? We cornered one of them and he apologised profusely saying it was just 'tradition', but that still isn't acceptable. Why are people so stupid?!
The highlight of my week had to be Zumba though. I had never done it before, so was really excited for it, and it was so much fun! I have never known a man to be so smooth with his hips the way the instructor was! Lots of fun, lots of booty shaking and a great workout! Can't wait to go again.
Work is still fine. It makes me laugh that I, in fact, haven't still been trained properly! There are still things which I don't know how to solve/ do, they ask me if I know how to do something/where something is kept and I have to hold back my laughter when I explain 'No, I have no idea about anything!!!'. We are another staff member down again this week which will be challenging again.
As a round off to my month here, I though I would just end this post by noting some of the things I have learned/ discovered since being here:
- The French don't understand kisses on messages, they always put ^^ instead (apparently its a face?!)
- Cadbury's is impossible to find!
- Lunch is always 12 on the dot, no matter what you are doing, and involves three courses with a big main meal.
- My name has sexual connotations
- Paris by night is stressful
- Paris transport is unreliable, even during the day
- The French love green beans with everything
- General life just seems to be behind the times. e.g library cards can't be scanned, the numbers have to be typed in manually. You can't check your bank balance from any hole in the wall, it has to be the one of your bank
- Masters students drink a lot and think its ok to thow beer on you
- Its acceptable to pee off the balcony onto people entering the club
- Branded items in supermarkets are so expensive! my usual L'Oreal shampoo was €3.50 per bottle!
- I can't get to grips with the pronunciation of vowels or the way numbers are said. ( 'e' is 'uh', 'i' is 'ee', 'j' is 'jee'; numbers are said in pairs instead of individually)
- 'Top' means 'really great'. Its my fave new word!
Voilà, first month and what an experience it has been! Thanks again for reading,
a plus!
^^
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