Nuit Blanche

Hey everyone! Here’s a weekend-check in about Nuit Blanche.

Yesterday during the day I was pretty lazy and not too exciting, so I just stayed in he foyer all day and did some work. Of course, not nearly as much work as I should’ve, but it’s kind if hard to concentrate in the common room because it’s such a social center and it’s really loud. But since the internet isn’t working in my room, it’s the only place I can go to get wifi. Emily and I went out in the afternoon to do some shopping, which turned out to be a failure (or maybe a success, as I saved some money). No need to bore you with my shopping escapades, though!
For dinner, a group of us went out to Thai food. It was really delicious! And not too far from the foyer, so we just walked. It was really nice to go out with friends and have a nice, long dinner. Emphasis on the long; we left around 7:45 and didn’t get back until 10:30! But eating is really important in France, especially in Paris, and the average meal will take at least 2 hours. Someone told me that an article published 6 months ago said that France was the only country that literally spent more time eating than sleeping. I believe it! It’s something I’ll have to get used to, but I really like that they value the time to sit down, have a long conversation, and eat slowly to really enjoy the food. Everyone in the U.S. is just GO GO GO all the time, we never stop and enjoy each other’s company or a good meal—not even at the same time.

Nuit Blanche: A night, once a year, of art/film/media installations all over the Paris, in 3 main areas: Chatelet/Le Marais, Buttes Chaumont, and Quartier Latin. It’s from 7 pm Saturday night to 7 am Sunday morning! I really wanted to see some of the art that was around Paris. A lot of my friends wanted to go to a nightclub but 1) it’s not really my scene, and 2) why go to a nightclub when you can go any night, and Nuit Blanch is only once a year? After dinner we hung out in one guy’s room for a little and there was some music and dancing, and it was fun to talk with some friends and just hang out. But Emily and I really wanted to see some Nuit Blanch festivities and still cach the last metro home, around 1:30/2. Only two metro lines were running all night, but neither had stops very close to our foyer. We left around 11:30 and went to the Luxembourg Garden first (can’t stay away!). Em, John, and Michelle get to walk through the Garden every day between classes and they saw a curious silver disco ball on Friday afternoon, so we decided to go check it out.

Installation: SO AWESOME. Sure enough, there was a giant glittering, silver disco ball, hanging right in the middle of the Garden from a huge crane. It looked like there was an hour-long wait to get inside, but it also looked like there was no one in the garden, so I’m not sure what that was about. But the line snaked around the outside of the garden and we didn’t want to wait. So we just walked around the outside the garden. The disco ball projected lights onto the clouds that looked like stars, and as it spun, the “stars” danced across the clouds, buildings, and tress. It was absolutely beautiful, how it was all illuminated! I have no idea how the lights could reach the clouds, but it was an incredible feat. I guess you have to really hope for a cloudy ngiht for this to work. We walked around the whole garden and just stared up at the sky. There was also a beautiful photography exhibition along the iron fence around the garden, so we took our time and looked at those, too. It was hard to move around with so many people, but I think it was awesome. We found one really great spot to see the disco ball and it was breathtaking. I don’t really know why people would want to wait on such a long line to get into the garden when the best view is actually a it further away from the installation. I’m really glad we saw it :)

We wanted to see the Eiffel Tower lit up at night but the RER stopped running by 1 and we couldn’t find a close bus station where the bus was going where we wanted to go. SO we had to walk kind of far to find another close metro station and just hope it wasn’t closed yet. The place was PACKED. The nice thing about Nuit Blanche is that almost everyone in Paris is out in the streets, having a good time and happy to enjoy the art. But the bad thing is, at least for me, that the streets and sidewalks were crowded and it was hard to move. Emily and I had to hold on to each other so we wouldn’t get separated. I just really don’t like being in big crowds to that extent, and everyone was drunk and loud and it always makes me nervous. We took the first metro line we could find, not knowing where it took us, but we eventually changed lines and luckily caught the last line 6 metro of the night! It was the line we needed and we both slept the whole way home.

I was so exhausted that I just crashed as soon as we got home, around 2:30. I really wanted to see Michelle, Kat, and Natalia tonight, too, but it was really hard to figure out how to meet up since we were all in different parts of Paris and then my phone ran out of minutes. Still, it was a really great night!