To say that this weekend was the absolute craziest weekend of my life would certainly be an understatement! As I mentioned before, a longtime tradition on the weekend of Bastille Day is to turn all of the firestations in Paris into night clubs where techno/ house music blares the streets of Paris until the sun rises the next day. Keeping up with the tradition, my friends and I took part in this craziness by going to one of the "Bal de pampiers" in the Marais area of Paris. However, before going out, we went to a comedy show that was put on by a comedian who is originally from New York and moved to Paris 8 years ago to perform his shows. Although still in English, it was just about the funniest performance I have ever seen, as he made fun of the French as well as the Americans in France too. After attending this, we quickly left to go out to the Firestation, and didn't even have to get directions because just as we got off the metro, the music was able to be heard 4 to five blocks away. As we walked in, there were over 100 firemen standing behind a bar with drinks ready to be given out.
The next morning was a result of how much fun we had because it was a struggle to get up at a reasonable hour. However, we continued to celebrate with the French and went to the Eiffel Tower to have a picnic and await the fireworks and concert that were to begin that night. I had a vision of the fireworks going off over the Seine River for about 15 minutes and that be the end of it. Well after three hours of waiting in order to get a good spot to sit at, (there had to have been over 1 million people visiting Paris for the weekend because there was not an ounce of grass available by the time the fireworks started) music and lights started blaring from the top of the tower as fireworks went off for a solid 30 to 45 minutes. It was the most surreal sight I have ever seen before!
To conclude this weekend, we woke up early this morning to go see Versailles, Louis XIV's castle that he built that took over 20 years to build, and Claude Monet's house in Giverny. It is not a shock now as to how he got inspiration and ended up being such a good artists due to the surroundings he grew up in. At every angle there were flowers with multiple gardens that surrounded his house at every glance. It is hard to believe that I only have two weeks left in Paris, but I will continue to make the best of everything as we all have accepted we will not be getting sleep until we return home in August!
A bientot!
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