Happy New Year!
It was a different New Year's than I was anticipating.
I've been excited for a few days now about New Year's Eve in Paris. No
need for an expensive restaurant or club. I just wanted to see how
Parisians celebrated and maybe see some fireworks.
The french guy was very patient with me. He kept telling me the
fireworks had been cancelled and there was nothing to see. And he was
particularly uneasy about going down to the Champs Elysees last night -
"it's a risk". I knew about the bomb scare at one of the local
department stores a few weeks ago, but isn't any large gathering of
people a risk nowadays?
But I insisted. I was not going to spend New Year's in hotel room
watching spagetti westerns dubbed in French. So we met up with a friend
of his in the Latin Quarter (after chocolate crepes) and walked around a
little before catching the metro to the Champs Elysees.
My first clue that this was going to be a different kind of night than I
anticipated should have been the armed police in body armour checking
bags as we exited the train. My second clue - the large number of
drunken teenage boys roaming in groups. The third - plywood covered
windows on stores that did not have plywood covered windows the other
night. I was beginning to think that maybe the french guy was right.
Our little group headed up the champs Elysees chatting (well, trying to
chat. The friend didn't speak much English, I don't speak any french,
and the french guy gets annoyed when he has to translate) and I tried to
take it all in. There were a ton of people out and about but also lots
of police. We had made it around the Arc de Triomphe as it approached
midnight, but the guys were shivering by now. We ducked into a Renault
dealership/restaurant for them to warm up and that is where I was when
the year ended.
There was no countdown from the crowd, no confetti, no noisemakers, no
fireworks. There were some champagne bottles being opened, but that's
about it. Not what I was expecting at all.
Not long afterwards we started the 2 hour trip back to the hotel and
that is where I snapped this picture of the Christmas tree outside Notre
Dame.
2008 may have ended on a fizzle instead of a pop, but it was still worth
it. Here's to a better year for everyone in 2009!
2 comments:
Making the french guy go to see the fireworks reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where the girl comes in from out of town and asks Jerry if he would want to do a boat tour around Manhattan. Jerry, just to get in her pants says "sure, that would be great, I've never done that". Too funny.
I have to wonder what he says to his friends about me. To me, the place down the street that sells fruit and drinks is a cute little french shop. To him, it's probably just another 7-11.
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