La Nuit á Paris!

Saturday night was my first experience at a French club (“discotheque” if you’re French, or if you were cool in the 70s). It was….interesting. Definitely fun. But, also interesting. I left the house feeling sort of weird about the whole situation. I tripped going out the door of my building. Then, three people asked me for directions, and I had to say “je ne sais pas”. One of them wasn’t too happy about it. There was a concert going on at the Palais de Omnisport near my house and there was a massive amount of people. I considered turning around and going home, but I didn’t feel like I really could without it being incredibly awkward.

Host families are an interesting thing…. I feel like I’m being “observed”, almost judged, by people that are neither my peers nor my family. If the people I lived with were my age or my parents, I probably would have just turned around and returned home. But, I didn’t want them to think something was drastically wrong or to try to explain that I was simply a little uncomfortable. And, I especially didn’t want them to think I was a weird, indecisive American. So, I continued on.

When I got there, my friends had already gone inside. The club was directly under a bridge on the Seine, right off the Champs-Elysees. There were windows in the club where you could glance out and see the water. There were arches inside that really made you feel like you were under a bridge. When I walked up to the door of the club, I was asked (in French of course) “Are you on the list?”. Thank goodness my friends told me to expect this, because otherwise I would have had no clue what they were asking me. I shook my head. Then after getting this odd “let me see if you are attractive enough to enter” look that I always thought (hoped) was an urban myth, I was told to go ahead. The woman’s tone of voice was so condescending, like she had the most powerful job in the world and was doing me such an amazing favor. Weird.

I walked in and the club was almost empty. I saw my friends immediately. They all had the exact same experience at the door. We knew we were there early, and there were only about 10 other people in this huge place. But, there is no cover charge or line before 12. When we left the line to enter was incredibly long. A little after midnight the club was full of young, “hip” people. The DJ started and we had a lot of fun dancing! The music was definitely a little different from the places I’ve been in the States. Most of the music was in English, but some songs were in French. I think you call the songs “mashups”, where a bunch of different songs are put together. The songs were a mix between rock, pop and techno. At about 12:30 the DJ changed. The new “artist” was named Jacuzzi… The performance was hilarious. I guess she was a singer… Overall, it was just ridiculous. She wore a superhero-esque costume at the beginning. But… my favorite part was when she yelled “Bonsoir Paris!” at the beginning of her performance. We were having fun, but we left anyways around 1am. The Metro stops running close to 2. In Chicago the El runs all night… so we’re not used to this lack of transportation after a certain hour. Taxis are very hard to find, not to mention expensive. In order to hire a cab, you have to go to a special “taxi stand”. Apparently, sticking your arm out on the side of the road doesn’t translate into French.

Other updates: I ate foie gras. It snowed here a little on Sunday night, and my apartment is freezing! Next week is supposed to be much warmer. I've spent upwards of 8 hours in the Louvre, and we go to the Musee D'Orsay on Friday. There are new students in my French class, and we now have 12 different nationalities. I love my new German "sister"! Today, I went to the Champs Elysees for the first time during the day. This weekend I'm going to the Loire valley!