Regardless, 2012 has started brilliantly!
The Eve's festivities started with a trip to a friend's appartment on the metro, which was free! It actually makes no difference for me because my Navigo lasts for the entire month, but it was pretty cool to walk straight through the barriers, and even funner to watch all the tourists buy their tickets and try putting them through and seeing their confused faces when their billets came back out at them. Instead of telling them about the temporary free system, we thought it was important that they figured it out for themselves, (because what better way to learn than from your OWN mistakes, right?)...and because it was superbly entertaining. We managed to get on the metro easily, which is not what we expected, thinking that it would be super busy on one of the busiest nights of the year.
What was supposed to be a small gathering at our friend's appartment quickly developed into a test of the floor strength of their wooden wonderland. There was champagne, baguettes, cheese, sneaky photo taking, party hats, christmas crackers and orgasms.... courtesy of the secret santa acquired Orgasmatron, which quickly became a game of who could give the most orgasms throughout the night. I will leave it up to your imagination who won....
Remarkably, there were 10 New Zealander's. Even more remarkably, they were all from Christchurch! How's that for a portrayal of the toll of the earthquakes? Not really, but it was amazing that we completely dominated all the other nationalities there. There were also some Canadians and some American's thrown in for good measure who were incredibly delighted about the Christmas crackers (thanks, Mum!) as they either didn't know what they were or had only seen them once or twice. Their first impression was high too because they were good ones, I got Manuka honey body wash in mine! Not that I won, but it didn't stop me from stealing the contents when the winner's back was turned... just kidding. She was in the bathroom.
The party hats also served a useful purpose, as our group was so large we implemented the number system where everyone numbers off, so as not to lose each other when walking through the streets and navigating our way through the now-bustling metro. However, a combination of wine, crowds, noise and general high spirits made the practicality of numbering off consecutively a little hard for some to master. While we began with 1, 2, 3, it quickly became 7, 21, 13 and by the end we discovered we had either lost or gained three people. Therefore the party hats were much more succesful in keeping an eye on everyone and were easy to spot amongst the classy, well dressed French who saw brightly coloured plastic hats as beneath them.
By the time everyone was out the door of the appartment (it was like herding a large group of badly trained sheep) it was much later than we had anticipated and we ended up walking a, shall we say, interesting, way to the metro (thanks W, nothing like sight seeing the Notre Dame which is completely in the opposite direction of our destination). But we still got to the banks of the Seine bordering the Eiffel with about 45 minutes until the big 1.2.
There were heaps of people who all headed to directly beneath the tour, joining the masses and the freshly filled muddy puddles. We spotted a small stretch of free wall along the Seine and claimed it (almost in the same way that cats and dogs claim their territory thanks to some of the boys..) and were set up with a spectacular view. We were right next to the bridge featured in Inception (the scene when she first discovers that she is in a dream and can create her own world, for those that care) and then the swarms of boats that were darting up and down the Seine all came to a standstill right behind us and signalled that it was almost time.
I got out my bottle of champagne (which was totally amazing, thanks bro) in preparation and wanted to pop it loudly but knew I would screw up so asked one of the boys to instead. Unfortunately he was a bit premature.... Awkward. This definitely created jokes and plenty of teasing. Nevertheless, we tucked into the champagne as the clock struck 12 and the Eiffel lit up and sparkled! Unfortunately there were actually no fireworks from the Eiffel but the people right next to us let off some (which was more scary than exciting) and everyone went crazy! So exciting! Bonne Année all around! We chilled there for awhile, watching the fireworks all around the city and watching the Eiffel sparkle for the first 10 minutes of the New Year!
We made our way down the Seine towards the Champs Elysées and there were people everywhere. So busy. I could hear 'bonne année's' ringing out constantly, unknown new year revellers the friendliest Parisian's I have ever encountered. There was a scary scene under one of the bridges where it appeared someone had dropped/fell off the bridge and there were lots of police around, including some in boats with torches searching through the river. Not so good. We also encountered a very drunk/drugged man who, as we were walking along happened to faceplant directly into a car and then rolled onto the ground right in front of us. Blood everywhere. Luckily, the boys were able to look after him, clean him up a bit and call les pompiers before he got into any more strife. It looked similar to a pumping Thursday night at the Foundry...
There were stalls everywhere selling more champagne, beer and various food and constant traffic jams throughout the centre of the city, with the usual angry French and their constant horn-blaring. We got to the Champs Elysées and it looked like one massive party, people everywhere, and a messy street with the remains of a good time. We walked down the length of it which was filled with police and their intimidating moon boots, space suits and war rifles, but more filled with eager men whose wrath of words and confidence was considerably more frightening. Clearly feeling their time was running out to find a nice woman and instead deciding that the first 30 minutes of 2012 was the perfect time to secure a future wife, the street known for being a tourist mecca soon bathed in a different, more seedy light. Needless to say, it took us a lot longer than it should have to walk down the street.
By the time we reached Place de la Concorde, marriage proposals were no longer rare and I had practiced saying 'piss off' more times than I can count. One such male wouldn't take 'there is no hope in hell that I would ever even consider you' seriously and instead insisted on being exposed to N's wrath. Too bad.
By the time we reached the metro we were exhausted from fighting off men as often as Batman saved Robin and the sight of a massive, bulging crowd of metro go'ers was not ideal. Luckily there was security everywhere and we managed to squeeze ourselves onto an already tight train. I definitely know what cologne the lovely man next to me was wearing. In fact, I probably still smell of it.
Bizarrely, the metro was on some kind of New Year's Eve express service and the metro travelled from Place de la Concorde directly to our stop of Chatelet! Not bad considering it was still free! I have no idea why it hurtled past 5 metro stops and decided to stop at ours but I'm not complaining! We arrived home, completely dead and sweating from the lack of personal space we'd encountered (and the fact that Paris had decide to turn up the heat for the new year, deciding it was going to act like the end of Spring rather than the heart of winter.)
Tomorrow I'm going wine tasting (Tattinger, apparently. Though that could be a sports team for all I know) while hurriedly trying to pack up the accumulating stuff I own and move out of our beloved apartment and pack for our travel.
2012, you're looking pretty good.
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