Les jeunes de la nuit

(The one in which I get my first taste of Parisian nightlife)

Well, an exciting past few days; a good reason, I think, for not updating. In any case: my first visit to the Georges Pompidou, another embarrassing "OMG ART" moment. The usual.


An extremely interesting museum, clearly. Not quite as cute as the MCA, or as full of masterpieces as the MoMA, but had the best layout of any museum I've ever been to. It has an elevator on the outside, for chrissakes! How sweet! I would add more academic details but at that point was still nursing the remnants of jetlag, so I was a tad too tired.

Also that day: excursion amonst the Tuileries garden and seeing the outside of the Louvre. I decided I. M. Pei is a genius: there's some kind of metaphysical harmony with the glass pyramid and the obnoxiously baroque architecture of the Louvre. It's hard to describe. See for yourself, although it was quite cloudy that day, thus masking the glory of the glass pyramid:


Metaphysical, right? Right. Shush, all you conservative disbelievers.

Before that afternoon in the Jardin de Tuileries, it didn't really hit me that I was in Paris. Then, after the most delicious hot cocoa of my life, and after the sun finally came out, it hit me: how beautiful all of this is. Paris, both to those that have visited and those that have not, has become an abstraction: the city of lights, of love, of tourism, of art, of the realization of dreams, of the glorification of the starving artist, of sex, of life. It's unbelievable the complexity of what the mere word "Paris" invites in the mind. And I'm here experiencing all of it. So, why not enjoy myself?

Which I did, promptly, the next day at my first ever Parisian discotheque/club. A few kids from the Reid Hall program went to see Justice at a venue conspicuously named "The Social Club," probably the most scenester venue I have ever seen. After polishing off a bottle of 2 euro champagne and a gruesome struggle amongst many a keffiyeh-donning, sunglass-wearing, tight-pant-rocking Parisian (there are no bouncers in Paris), we were in. I wish I had my camera with me; it was pretty crazy inside as well. Best moments of the show: the DJ played Portishead's "Machine Gun," which all of the American kids went crazy over (while the Parisians were ambivalent), and later Justice mixed MGMT's "Kids," a song I've been obsessing over for the past few days. Thanks Justice!

We left at 2:30 AM, and were struck with the dilemma of finding ways to get home after the metro closed. Alas, I arrived back at my (apparently Godardian? I think it's more Flaubertian) abode near the Red Light district one 5 euro taxi cab later. Fun!

The next day: adventures continued with bottles of wine as the sun set on Reid Hall and the 5e arrondissement. I found a really great (and cheap) hookah place nearby, so a group of us spent the night slightly buzzed and quite content. I'm actually pretty proud of the discovery; for once a social outing I initiate doesn't end in boredom/disaster.

Later days! Tomorrow: I explore the Louvre.