Still missing my camera, but even if I had one you wouldn't be able to tell how amazing it was...

Yes, it's a long title. Yes, it was an amazing night. Yes, I came home at 5 in the morning last night. Yes, Paris is a crazy amazing city. Yes, yes, yes, yes...yessssssssssssss. (I have to fulfill some of the promises of the preview, don't I?)

You know what I realized? I'm never much of a person to write descriptions of what I did. I much more prefer writing about what I experienced, what I learned, how I felt, than to write sentence-by-sentence reports of what exactly went on. I guess I don't have much of a career in journalism. And I myself much prefer reading about what went on than getting someone's self-centered perceptions, but, well, you're just going to have to deal. I'll try my best to include some sort of detail.

Voila, donc. This weekend started Thursday night and ended Sunday morning. And, well, it almost ran straight through the entire thing. Anyway, let's see, to start - Thursday. Thursday I met Helena and Caroline and Daniela (Helena and Daniela are in the Sweet Briar program here, and Caroline was visiting Helena) for hookah in the Bastille area, which was great. We were all Parisian and such except for the fact that we were speaking English the whole night. But, well, we were still talking in some hole-in-the-wall bar/hookah place, which to me felt very Parisian.

Alright, so Friday: met Daniela and her friends at Bastille again (the world revolves around Bastille and St-Michel, I swear). We tried to get into a gay club, but that didn't work to well seeing as we were one guy and three girls trying to get into a male club. Oh well, there are others that are more open minded out there (or that allow women in any case). I mean, I understand the point, you know...but, gay men have friends who tend to be female. What's wrong with just wanting to have a good time, not necessarily finding some man meat? Whatever, I know for future reference to not go there, or to go there alone or with only male friends. But we had fun anyway downing a bottle of beer between three people at some karaoke bar up the street. Always fun to hear French people belting out Kelly Clarkson and Madonna as if they themselves are American (with perfect accents, might I add).

Then there was Saturday. What to say, what to say. Let me just say, it was Paris's 5th annual Nuit Blanche, which for the uninitiated means "white night" but translates to the idea of "all-nighter" (the night is "white" because you see the sun come up...get it?). Alright, so what it is like if someone took all of the artists in Paris, bundled them into a big balloon sort of thing, then stuck a huge needle in the balloon and let them explode all over the city. There were 6 main areas of focus, but it literally was like art had exploded onto Paris. I mean, there were ICE CUBES on the Champs Elysees, the Place de Concorde was lit up in blue/violet, and a movie was playing in some random back alley in le Marais. I mean, you know? It was so amazing and, at the same time, overwhelming. And there were people EVERYWHERE, which of course added to the excitement. It's hard really to choose a highlight...I mean, I saw amazing fireworks right in front of the Sacre Coeur, I saw Concorde in bleu, I saw a modern dance (and ALL MALE!!!!!) ballet in the Louvre (surrounded by Renaissance sculptures), I saw an amazingly dramatic reading in the Hotel de Ville...let's just say it was all amazing!!! I also would like to add that goal number 789,165 in my life is now to at least once perform a piece of theatre in French. The language just lends itself so well to the theatre, and it's a completely different auditory experience. It also meant that I was out until 5 in the AM. Score one for nuit blanche, and for a host mother who doesn't mind when I sleep in to 1:30PM after a nuit blanche.

Alors, enfin, only in Paris, is all I can say. I mean, other cities can rival the art collections (NY, London, SF), and other cities can have infinitely more people, but only in Paris would there be an "all-nighter" of art where what literally seems like the WHOLE CITY is out walking the streets still at 3AM (after that I'll admit it did start to teeter off a little). Suffice it to say that I am glad once again to have chosen Paris as my city of study, and to have chosen to go abroad. I can't wait to discover more and more, and to always wish I had much more time to explore. I'm definitely going to need to live here one day. Anyone wanna join?