New Years went by in a sparkle of lights and perhaps a little too much champagne. I stood with some at the base of the Eiffel Tower until midnight, when the lights on the tower began to flash and fireworks went up all around.
Reading week has just ended in my program, and after turning in the big paper I’ve been working on all week I feel free as a little bird to once again go out and explore this wonderful city… For a little while; second semester starts Today. Most French universities prefer to make their students work and worry during the Christmas break and then put them through exams as soon as they get back. Then the second semester starts before the first one really seems to end.
To celebrate, Friday night I went to a jazz club with a couple of friends from Sarah Lawrence called the Caveau de la Huchette. It was great. A swing band from Milan played, and the dance flour was crowded with dancing couples. Some of them were excellent dancers and fun to watch. There weren’t many people our age, but we went out there anyway and had loads of fun. I have no idea how they all got home, since the metro stops running at 1am, and the party was still going strong when we left.
Come to think of it, almost my whole weekend was devoted to doing American things in Paris. Friday was Jazz/swing, Saturday I went out to see Rocky Horror at this tiny cinema with a French friend, and then on Sunday I went to another small movie theater with my friend Peggah, this time to see the Marx Brother’s film, “A night at the Opera.” It was great! After the film on Sunday we went to an exhibition of American photography from the 50s 60s and 70s, which was also very good.
The Rocky Horror film was probably the most interesting experience of the weekend. I had no idea the French were so into it. They went all out doing call-outs, dancing, actors on stage in front of the screen, rice-throwing during the marriages, water-tossing during the rain, etc. The group who puts it on does it every Friday and Saturday, all year round. The weirdest thing was that it was mostly all done in English. There were subtitles for the film, of course, but the actors spoke a lot of their lines in English, and the audience shouted “slut” and “asshole” whenever the main characters in the film introduced themselves. It was very funny, even though I’m not a huge fan of Rocky myself.
Right now Paris is grey and dreary. It warmed up though; last week’s snow (a rarity in Paris) finally melted and today the rain has been pouring down, cleaning the air and the sidewalks. Last weekend my program took us to the south of France, where the palm trees and sunny afternoons reminded me of Oakland. We still had to wear jackets, but compared to frigid Paris it felt like summer. In my last post I put up a few pictures.
Oh, and I almost forgot! The other night I chopped a few inches off of my hair, and now it's amazingly curly. I still might go get it trimmed by a professional later, but for now it'll do. See the photo below.
Bisous!
