Nuit Blanche

And the close to yet another eventful weekend in Paris!

Friday

At our program's studio, we had a little french tasting night. Cheese/Bread/Wine. My most favorites. There were plates full of different cheese throughout France...organized by regions, bowls of endless bread, confiture (jam) and a plethora of wine (as you can see). There was also a speaker who talked about the different kinds of cheese, where they came from, their tastes, etc. She also talked about the French term "Terroir". Which is like how a specific region has influence on a product whether it be wine/cheese/etc. You can wiki the term to get a better understanding of it! So we feasted for an hour or so on cheese and bread. Some of the cheese were super good while others were much to strong for my taste. I don't know if you've ever tried Roquefort, but that bad boy is a strong one! It's a white cheese with green spots of bacteria throughout. You can see it in the picture. I tried it a while back one dinner with my host mom. Ofta it's strong. I tried it again though at this taste party...my dislike towards Roquefort continues. So after stuffing our mouths with all the cheese and bread that was constantly being shoved into our faces, and washing it down with glasses of wine, the taste party was over. I went to a hookah bar afterwards with some friends (hookah is flavored tobacco). My tummy was going crazy. I mean, when you think about it, I just ate a ton of cheese, stinky cheese, and wine. My stomach punished me with a trip to les toilettes.

Saturday

I found this site a while back called Polyglot, which is a language partner seeking site. You sign up, list the languages you speak, and what languages you are interested in learning, and then write a little bio about yourself. I said I was studying abroad in Paris for the semester and was looking for a person to speak french with, in turn I could teach them english. I've received about 4 messages from other people and finally decided to set something up with this one person. I met her in the afternoon and we just walked around and talked. I enjoyed it much and I think we'll probably meet again sometime in the future.

Saturday night. oooooooo what a night. It was the 8th Nuit Blanche (White Night) in Paris. Tons and tons of art installations are set up throughout the city, I think there is over a hundred, museums and galleries are free and open to the public. Some are only open until a certain time, others ALL NIGHT. And dont you know it, I was up alllll night, but I had to fight for it. I met up with two friends around 9 and commenced our first nuit blanche. There were people every where. Yelling, running around, drinking too much, singing. It was quite funny. I took a bunch of pictures of the different installations and some videos which I shall upload.



Now I know these pictures are pretty terrible (especially the first two) compared to the other blog pictures but I needed them to explain what's going on here. The first picture is of a building which had a massive projection near the ground out of view of spaces pictures and music playing, and up top as you can see, there was this green laser zooming off. The second picture is still at that building but looking the other way. I was trying to show how far the laser went. You can BARELY see it, but it's there. If you look down the street, you see that big white circle in the air. That's how far the laser went. And this WHITE CIRCLE was a gigantic disco ball held up by a crane. Lights were shot up at it and reflected in all directions. I was told the purpose of this piece was to represent the stars in the sky, because in a big city with all the lights it's pretty difficult to see the stars. Thank goodness it cloudy that night for this thing to work. Sure enough, the lights reflected onto the clouds and were moving all over. It was pretty crazy.





This video is of a street band grooving out on the street. There was a huge crowd and everyone was yelling and dancing. It was great!


This is just a picture down the Seine. Perdy lights. Lots of people on the quai's.


In Notre-Dame there was, as you can see, tons of these crystals throughout it. Various sizes and colors. The first pictures shows the line waiting to get in. That was around 11 though. My friends and I saw this line and decided to go some some other installations and then come back. Good idea that was. We returned around 3, and there wasn't a line at all!



Did I make it all through the night? Sure did. See, during the night only two metro lines were running, and all the others didn't open until 6 in the morning. The two lines didn't even come close to where I lived so that was out of the question. The buses run all through the night, but I've never taken the buses myself. Not too familiar with them. So I decided to power through the night with my friends even though I was kind of sick. The past week I've had a small cold and last night probably didn't help that. I started loosing my voice around 4 in the morning. When all said and done, got home and shut the eyes at 6:30 in the morning. I slept until 4 in the afternoon on Sunday. Woke up with a pulsing headache, which I still have. Random cough attacks too. Took my temperature tonight, and dont have a temp so thats good. They say the first sign to the N1H1 is the fever. So I just think it's a pesky cold. Was it worth staying up all night? Bien sur!

p.s. I lost 1/2 a pound during Nuit Blanche from walking pretty much 9 hours straight. That's including having a massive plate of noodles and cheese before the night started, and eating a nutella banana crepe during the night. So if you want to get rid of 1/2 a pound = walk for 9 hours!