December 31, 2003

Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 19:01:53 -0800 (PST)
Subject: An evening in Paris

Bonjour,

Well, its 2:43am and its been a long night and i'm still wide awake...

first of all, (again) ... HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone!!!! this email is probably going to be a long one... its been a long day! btw i've had 3 glasses of 1999 Bordeaux white wine in the last 46 minutes, so if there are any spelling mistakes in this mail, apologies in advance.

this morning i had gone to the Notre Dame cathedral - a 5-minute walk from where i'm staying. On my last trip to paris i hadn't gone up to the top, so wanted to do that this time. i got in line, and stood there...... probably for more than 1/2 hour, with the line moving ahead at the rate of 1 person every 5 minutes or so... i couldnt stand the wait anymore so i left; made my way to Champs-Elysses for lunch. (Cafe George V restaurant just outside the George V metro exit -- "an old favorite"). then strolled around on Champs-Elysses and Place de la Concorde area before coming back to my toom for a nap.

woke up around 5:30, and leisurely started to get ready to go to the Eiffel tower for the evening -- recharged my camera battery, made sure the flash card was empty... stuff like that.

around 6:30pm i left and went back to Champs-Elysses for dinner - this time at a McDonalds - then headed on over to "le Tour Eiffel". before that, i had a somewhat interesting conversation with someone at the restaurant:

Him: Excuse me, do you know Paris well?
Me: Well, i had come here about 2 years ago, why?
Him: Do you know of any cheap places we can go to tonight?
Me: (thinking he meant motels) Last time i had stayed over here (pointing at map) Rue Geoffrey Marie.
Him: Ohhh ok, is it nice?
Me: well, its not nice, but its cheap... but i dont know if they'll have any rooms available tonight.
Him: Rooms?
Me: Yeah hotel rooms - they probably wont have any available tonight -- December 31.
Him: No no, we dont want place to stay, we wanted to find out where to go for drinking -- clubs or bars!
Me: ohhhh! sorry, i dont know that.....

well... i think typing it above doesnt sound all that funny, but it was at the time! we both had quite a laugh from that..

anyway, after dinner i took the metro to the Trocadero station -- excellent views of the Eiffel Tower from there, with the fountains in the foreground! it was all lit up as usual, but at precisely 8:00 pm, they turned on some more lights ... literally thousands of twinkling blinking flashing white dots all over the tower, in addition to the standard yellow lights on the beams. That looked amazing!!!! i took more than 40 pictures there! actually it was more to experiment with the various settings on the camera to get it just right for the fireworks later on.....

at precisely 8:10pm, the thousands of twinkling blinking flashing white dots all over the tower turned off, and it was again back to the standard yellow lights. there's really something enchanting or magical about the tower at night, and especially tonight with the additional lights it looked gorgeous! well worth enduring the freezing cold to see it....... (more on that later)

so after that i decided to go back to my room to warm up for a while ... i came back here and got lost after exiting from the metro -- i took a different exit than normal and went the opposite direction from where i was supposed to... and ended up behind the Louvre museum. So it took a while to walk back -- along the way stopping at a small store to buy some food items, a bottle of Fanta, and a bottle of Bordeaux white wine - white was difficult to find; most of them were red and i prefer white.

10pm i left again for the Tour Eiffel -- through two PACKED metro trains -- packed so tight that there was no need to hold on to anything as the train accelerated or came to a stop at a station .... there was only a need to guard your wallets! that was actually pretty funny too - some people had their hand on their chest pocket - a sure sign to would-be pickpockets that their wallets are there! there was no other logical reason to put their hands on their chest! anyway, noone took anything out of my pockets...

i got to the eiffel tower area (again) -- near the fountains at Trocadero, and found a good place to sit -- this was just slightly after 11pm ..... almost 1 hour of waiting in the sub-freezing temperatures before the "festivities" started.................

it was COOOOOLD!!!! i was sitting on one of the concrete railings, and the concrete itself was cold. A couple of the people i was sitting next to took their shoes off, put them on the concrete, and sat on them -- that looked like a good idea at the time, so i did the same thing. i'd still have my socks to protect my feet right?

Hmmmm... Five minutes later, i stood up, put my shoes back on, took off my gloves and sat on those and put my hands in my pockets.

Time: 11:25. STILL ONLY 11:25!!!! ugh 35 more minutes......

on the tower i could make out a sign that said "2004" in lights --- of course it was not lit yet. the tower was still in its standard yellow ... no blinking white lights yet either.

Time: 11:40. can't feel my nose. 20 more minutes.......... the excitement was building in the crowds too -- i was slightly away from most of it but there were people lighting their own fireworks -- and there were people getting hurt by them! Just like in Rome last year! Some of the overly-drunk people would light a firecracker and then throw it up in the air ------- and when that thing came down, it was best not to be anywhere near it!

Time: 11:41. i was checking my watch more and more often closer to midnight -- partially because most of my body was numb from the cold by this point.

11:42.....43....43....43.....43....44.....44.....

"come on!!!!!!!!!!"

11:50 -- i stood up again, taking my camera out and ready and pointed in the right direction...

12:00 AM January 1, 2004 -- the white blinking lights on the tower turned on! it was the new year!!!!!! everyone started shouting, singing, popping champaigne bottle corks, and also dodging those flying corks.....

"yaaaaayyyyyyyy happy new year!!!!!!"

"where are the fireworks?"

"why is the "2004" sign on the tower not lit?"

there was nothing. the main fireworks did not work, for whatever reason!! people were setting off their own fireworks, but there was nothing coming out of the tower! just the yellow lights on all the beams, and all the blinking white dots all over the tower, but NO MAIN FIREWORKS DISPLAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

after a few minutes of waiting for nothing whatsoever to happen, everywhere around me i could hear people mumbling --- mostly in french but they probably saying the same thing i was thinking -- "whats going on?" at 12:15 am, all lights on the tower were shut off.

needless to say, i was EXTREMELY dissapointed!!! after sitting there in the cold for more than an hour, all i got to see was lights on the tower and a bunch of drunks having more fun than they should!! now, the lights WERE nice -- no complaints about that, they were very very VERY nice!!! but i wanted to see fireworks!!!!! the kind of show that Sydney put on! but.... it didn't happen.

i didn't want to take the metro back -- i could imagine how crowded it would be; so i started to walk .... From the Eiffel Tower to Notre Dame all along the Seine river. It took almost 2 hours at a quick pace -- so i'm guessing it was probably about 5 miles. that was a nice walk though -- all lights reflecting in the river ... very beautiful.

its almost 4am now, and the weather report says in a couple of hours its supposed to start snowing. No matter how cold it was tonight, at least it did not rain or snow. And i'm so glad it didn't because if it had, i probably would have stayed there in spite of the rain/snow and i would be a hundred times more upset than i already am that there wasnt any fireworks show.

Next year i want to go to Sydney.

Maybe both Sydney and Honolulu... like so many people did in 2000.

But now i have one more email to send so i'll close this one off..... bon nuit, and happy new year again!

-- moi

Please wait for the all pictures to load before clicking on any thumbnail - there are 51 total pictures on this page.

Notre Dame Cathedral: