I Don't Know About You Paris

Saturday night may have been one of the most interesting nights of my life, in a bad way. Now that it's a couple days later, I can calm down and look at the situation in a more clear-headed manner but that night I was sooooooo angry. So this past weekend, Teri came to visit and I was sooo excited b/c I hadn't seen Teri in a while and I missed her. And up until that point, I had been having a good time in Paris. The weekend before last was so good and so since this was my last weekend in Paris, I was determined to have an amazing weekend. I think that's the first problem: high expectations. It kind of happened when I was in Ghana and I was expecting that Saturday night to be absolutely amazing and it wasn't at all. The days before that were amazing but I didn't really have any expectations of those days. Anyway, Friday night Teri, some friends and I had a pretty typical French dinner (at least mine was: escargots and steak tartare) then we all got dressed up to go to Buddha Bar, which is supposed to be one of the chicest places in Paris. I think when it first opened it was for the young and trendy. These days it's for the rich and middle-aged. It was absolutely beautiful inside and I think I would love to have a nice dinner there and some drinks when I'm in a mellow mood.



But it wasn't really a young scene and drinks were EX.PEN.SIVE (like converted: $20 for a drink) so we sat and enjoyed the place before moving onto a cheaper and hipper place where we hung out for the rest of the night. But it was in a large group, which never really works in my opinion, so we left fairly early. So Saturday, I was determined that that night be good with tons of dancing since we hadn't gotten to dance the night before. The day was spent shopping and at night we decided to go to this club that was supposedly free and good but first we'd stop and get free drinks at this club/lounge down the street from where we live. Bad Idea. Once we were there, almost everyone went overboard and I still have no idea how it happened but almost everyone was unbelievably wasted except for me, Teri, and about 4 others. So people are like sitting outside of the club, falling all over the place and myself, Teri, Antonia and her friend didn't want to deal with all the drunk people so we decided to find this other club that was supposed to be free.

Also a bad idea. We get in a taxi and go to the area and the 4 of us are walking down this very crowded but full of assholes street when this one guy with his friends starts harassing Antonia. One of them grabs her and she flips out and starts yelling at him to stop touching her and leave us alone, etc. They're like ohhh you're friend is crazy and I just keep saying ok, Antonia, just keep walking and ignore them, they're not worth it. So we're walking down the street trying to ignore them but they're now following us and the one guy is yelling out really vulgar comments and we're just telling them to shut up and go away when we feel some liquid hit us. The guy had thrown some of his liter bottle of rum and coke on us. That's when we all flipped and I went up to the guy and yelled at him and pushed him (I definitely shouldn't have done that but I was furious after that) and so he pushed me back and I stumbled backwards. Antonia goes up to him and knocks the drink out of his hand and takes off running. Teri and I are left standing there b/c everything happened too fast to react and the guy picks up his bottle, which still had a lot of rum and coke in it, and throws it on both Teri and I, drenching Teri and temporarily blinding me b/c the rum and coke went strait into my eyes and burned the hell out of my contacts. I couldn't open my eyes at first and when I could, I could barely see and they were burning me like crazy. At this point, I am now crying from frustration, pain, surprise and whatever else and we have no idea where Antonia ran. We find out she ran into a restaurant to hide and we're still arguing with the guys who are now like oh, why you crying, etc and we manage to get Antonia to leave the restaurant and we run away from the guys and get a taxi. All in all, it was a horrible night and I was soooooo pissed off with both France and French people b/c at no point did anyone on that very crowded street offer assistance to the 4 girls being harassed by the sketchy men. I kept saying I wanted to go home immediately, I didn't care that we still had one more week left, I was so fed up and tired with the country. Granted, this was after a day of dealing with really rude French people (stereotypically rude French ppl) but up until that point, I had thought French people were great and not like what everyone thinks. Now I have mixed thoughts. There are definitely nice French people here but there are also a good number of people who came from other countries and thus, I'm not sure if I can really count them as French. But this weekend has very much tainted my view of France and French people. Sunday was a much better day with a trip to the museum, a really good dinner and a midnight trip to the lawn of the Eiffel Tower to watch it sparkle at night and indulge in good conversation and amazing chocolate cake.

Stole this one from Chasten:

I've decided that France is a beautiful city and I think it definitely is great for a romantic getaway and the culture but the people I can do without. I also think this is the perfect time for me to stay here. After these several weeks, I wonder how my experience would have been had I studied abroad in Paris during the semester for 5 months rather than 6 weeks. It's interesting that at the end of my Ghana trip, I was absolutely NOT ready to leave that country, even though I definitely had bad experiences there but I am definitely ready to leave Paris. French men are not chouette. In fact, they get on my nerves. So the next part of my trip awaits: London this Friday. I am sooo excited, even though I've heard mixed reactions about London. But I'm only there for 3 days so if I don't like it, it doesn't really matter. Anyway, that's all for now. Finals are coming up and hopefully one more night of going out on the town before I leave Paris. A bientot.