14 juillet, une autre aventure à Paris!

oh man, i went to Paris to see the feux d'artifice at the Tour Eiffel for the 14 juillet, and it was so cool! I called a bunch of ppl earlier in the day to see if any wanted to go with me, but all were like maybe, i'll call later, and Lucien called back just before 8pm, and he came and picked me up in Noisy. We drove to Versailles, where he lives, to take the RER C from Versailles Rive Gauche to Champ de Mars. I had heard earlier that the metro stations near the eiffel tower were closed b/c of the crowds and such, so the RER was very direct. I bought my ticket for there and back for 5€30, better than from Noisy which is in a different zone (5, versailles is in 4). so we got to the Champ de Mars station and exited with the tons of other ppl that were on the train, and walked around to look for a nice spot to stand. It was around 9h30, and the fireworks were going to start b/w 10h30 and 11. there were soooo many ppl, and we couldn't see the tower very well from too close to it b/c trees blocked most of it, and the clear places were already taken by crowds of ppl, so we kept walking away from it, and we ended up on the bridge over the seine that is by the Australian embassy and Japanese Chamber of culture and something else. the spots next to the railing (=nice view) were already 5 ppl deep, and there were ppl all over and on tons of boats in the river, and as it got darker the lights on the bridge stayed on (it was a covered one and had like streetlamps all over it), all though the street lights on the roads were turned off. :p it ruined my pictures some too, but i did my best. so they finally started and I started snapping away. I had to play with the shutter and aperature settings, so only some of them turned out not blurry and unfocused, but i did get some good ones. i took 5 short videos too, and i took so many pictures I had to delete the ones on my camera that i already took, so i deleted all the blurriest ones as i ran out of room. It’s 256 MB and I filled it up hehehe. The fireworks were really cool, they had the ones coming from off the tower and right next to it, and there were some just on the other side of the seine being shot over the river, so there were two, but both required different settings hehehe, and Lucien was teasing me later about taking pictures the Japanese style and watching the fireworks through my camera screen (I was fixing settings), and that every time he looked at me i was either deleting photos or looking at my camera hahaha, it's ok, i saw them and took the pictures, it was great. on one of the videos you can hear Lucien talking to his girlfriend on the phone. So after the show we went in the direction of Champ de Mars (hehe Mars Field) which is the long yard/garden area on the side of the eiffel tower opposite the seine and the Elysée presidential "white house". but there was a wall of ppl all coming from the Champ de Mars and heading towards the stations and cafés and it was packed solid, the whole street, and we were trying to push ourselves through, i was trying not to get lost, so i kept hanging onto Lucien who was expertly making his way through the crowd (we were next to a building's wall and the sea of ppl, he was clearing a path to squeeze though), with me in tow and a few guys in our wake who kept hollering "get to the middle" or "walk a little faster" and stupid stuff and we ignored them haha. but i was glad i had put my socks and tennis shoes on, or i would have stepped in trash and have had ppl stepping on my feet.... and it's good for running...

Lucien took a picture of me at one of the cross streets that was blocked off but we could see the tower that was all lit up. Then we got someone to take a picture of us at the Champ de Mars, but the guy kept his finger in front of the flash and took 7 pictures of feet, legs, and nothing at all, until his friend stepped in and took a good one for us hehehe. I took some pictures of the tower, it looks really nice lit up at night. We were walking around, trying to avoid the firecrackers that ppl were throwing everywhere (i almost got hit with a pétard, it blew up right behind me) and watched two guys get chased and tackled by the gendarmes, i think one of them got away b/c he was a lot faster than his buddy and i saw him later on our way back to the station. Then another couple came up to us and asked us in french if we spoke english, and asked lucien to take a picture hehehe, they were british, but the guy still thanked us in french, and i had spoken to them in english hehehe. so we finally made our way back to the station, the last RER back to Versailles was at 00h15 and we got there about 00h5. Lucien's girlfriend called him again and there was an announcement on the station speaker system, but there were so many ppl that i didn't hear it. Anyway, a train stopped and Lucien walked on so i followed him, but i was wondering, since it was a lot longer than the Versailles one, and when we got on the train as the doors closed and it took off that there were still a lot of ppl on the quai and it was only 00h10. I asked him, "Is the train early?" and he asked what time it was, umm... 00h10, "oh merde!" woups! he asked another passenger which train this was, and some guys in the back hollered out, "you want to go where? versailles? you crazy! this train is going straight to Argenteuil!" oh crap, that's NOT where we want to go, and there is no more transportation, and it's far away and no more metro, no more bus, no trains back to paris.... so we got off at the next stop (Avenue do Pdt Kennedy, on the leg above the Versailles one) and found out that the closest stop be needed was Javel, "just across that bridge and across the road" so we took off running, knowing that the train we needed was leaving the Champ de Mars station at 00h15 (like right at that point) and we ran and ran, although the bridge was a block down, really really long, and i was dying of asthma already, but we crossed the road and saw the train coming, and we found a bridge over the tracks and stairs to the quai, but no! the wrong direction! the entrance we needed was on the other end of the block, we were about half way, and these blocks are LOOOONG and i knew we couldn't make the 150 yards at least to the station entrance, get our tickets validated in the turnstile things, jump down the stairs and make it onto the train by the time the doors closed... they are only open like 2 minutes... not even sometimes... and i was running down the stairs, i couldn't run anymore, my legs felt really funny, and if i continued running, i was really going to be sick, so i hollered that i couldn't go any farther "j'peux plus, j'peux plus, on n'y arrivera jamais" and i collapsed on the steps :p i didn't care if i sat in crud or if my hair was getting trampled by ants, i was just laying there with my inhaler in one hand and my dead legs and my heart pounding like crazy... i can't even run the four blocks or whatever at top speed! i think the stations are about a km apart... anyway, Lucien tried to call for a cab, but there weren't any available for the arrondissement we were in (15th) and he tried to call his brother back in versailles but he never picked up. I joked and said i should pretend to have a crise d'asthme and we could have a ride in an ambulance, since there were plenty passing us, and police cars with their sirens on. Lucien finally got a hold of his brother, who had to go find where Lucien had parked the car in versailles, and then he was going to meet us at a bar across from the Javel station. So we walked there, and the block was longer than we realized, we never would have made the train... but we were like oh well, at least we have a ride coming. I was dripping sweat, but we had sat on the steps for a while, so i dried off some and cooled down a little...and finally caught my breath.

So we sat down at the bar across the street from the station and Lucien started to look through my pictures on my camera. The waiter came up and asked us in french what we would like, and since we didn't really think about it, Lucien asked him if he had a menu, and the waiter responded in really bad english, "no i don't have carte" hmm, how did he figure out I was anglophone? we were speaking french... and i asked the waiter in very correct french, "what do you have in beer?" and he listed some and i heard something about a belgian one, and I said we'll take two of those hehehe. Anyway, he came back, we were still speaking in french, and he still tried to speak in english, lucien and I asked him what it was that made hime think (or realize) i was american or at least english speaking, but he never said anything :p oh well we just sat and had our beers and looked at my pictures and had a nice time talking. He showed me his cell phone and all the gadgets on it, and the videos he took of the concert the night before in Versailles, and the internet access and the games and all that LOL! It’s probably why all his calls keep breaking up, his phone is more useful as a computer and camera than a real telephone! hahahaa When we wanted to leave b/c his brother drove up, i started getting out money to pay for the bill, but Lucien wanted to pay with his carte bleu, but the waiter said only for amounts more than 15 euros, and out bill was 8€30, so i set out the money and Lucien was looking for a bill and he came up with a 10 as the waiter was giving me my change, "too late, ta copine américain here has taken care of it." I said that we’d work it out later, but we didn’t want to keep his brother waiting for too long. They dropped me off in Noisy just before 2am, and I fell asleep really really fast!

Hehe I just remembered, it is funny, because Lucien had mentioned earlier that evening “where are your really tall high heels?” because I was wearing tennis shoes, he was joking of course, and said I was smart to have put on my tennis shoes. When we were sitting at the café, I told him, “good thing I really didn’t have high heels on, what would you have done if I had them on when we had to run to the other station?” “I would have carried you,” he said hahahaha that would have been funny, we really wouldn’t have even gotten close to the station and he would have been crevé (dead tired, literally, flat, as in a flat tire). I hope I can spend more time with him, he’s a lot of fun and is always cracking jokes. Too bad i didn't run into him earlier in my séjour here when i was all alone and had no one to hang out with!