Storming the Bastille, Fireworks, and Other non-American Red White and Blue Things

My dearest friends,

We did go to Dijon, a wonderful mini-Paris in the Burgundy wine region of France, and it was wonderful, but I am moving on to something else because it was lots of fun. To sum up Dijon was:

Wine
Cheese
Beautiful

I'm aware those are not all descriptive parts of speech, but they are exactly what Dijon was, so let's all accept that and move on to...

BASTILLE DAY!

Guys I don't know how it happened but when Szolla and I planned this trip we somehow
randomly landed in Paris on Bastille Day. I said Yes this is great And I want to do all of the special Bastille Day things. The first of which is a military parade on the Champs Elysees, which I can now pronounce correctly after years of not even attempting to do so.

I woke real early, like 7:00 am, in order to make it to the parade's start by 8:00 am. I did. The place already looked like this:

By the time the parade was about to start, by which I mean the President drives by at 10:00 am and the real parade doesn't start for another half an hour, it looked like this:

Now there's a little gap there where security guys are checking people's bags and belongings in order for them to move up. I was to scared to try because I don't speak any French. This disability left me in fear for the entire time we were in the country. But there were four rows of people behind me, two rows in front to the barrier, then at least three more in the front section FOR THE WHOLE CHAMPS ELYSEES. That's a lot of people. Speaking of a person, here's the President!

This is the current President of France. The short one. He is also starring as Jean Valjean in Les Mis and baking all of the baguettes. The tall man next to him is, of course, playing Javert. Lotsa' tension on that there humvee.

After the President this happened:

My favorite part of the parade. Sorry, President Valjean. Next came troop after troops of soldiers marching in very silly uniforms. Notable differences between the French military and the American:

Way more soldiers have swords.

Soldiers who don't have swords have big old machine guns with bayonets.

Soldiers who don't have either had what appeared to be giant red axes.

Some uniforms have hats with fuzzy poms on top, some have feathers, berets, lots of shiny metal ones.

They have a cavalry unit that must do very little in terms of modern warfare.

Crowds cheer for the Foreign Legion but for NOBODY ELSE. No idea why.

I didn't eat before the parade and it ended at noon so I was deceased by the time the mounted troops went by. I left and devoured a baguette, baked specially for me by the President, and wandered to the Eiffel Tower to lounge for a bit. I walked from there down the Seine to Notre Dame. 

Guys it is really hard not to sing Les Mis and Hunchback songs while walking the streets of Paris

"Do you hear the people sing?
And by people I mean me.
Oh you do, okay, I'll try to sing
in a softer key!

 But it is especially hard to stand inside Notre Dame and not yell

"SANCTUARY! SANCTUARY!"

I held it in. Painfully so. Here's Notre Dame.

If you want a really good look at it, watch Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, in which I will be playing Claude Frollo at some point in my life yet to be determined.

I slept for a bit then sped off to my second Bastille Day activity: A concert in front of the Eiffel Tower with fireworks!

I arrived to find the lawn full all the way to the Peace Memorial and the concert hadn't even started yet. Tucking in the back, I sat next to one nice woman from Los Angeles and another from Pennsylvania. We were all like,

"People smoke so much here."

"I know! How rude!"

I'm a hit with Moms... ladies.

People then started smoking all around us and blowing said smoke in our direction to which I responded with a coughing fit, tears, and a lot of passive aggression... ladies.

I couldn't see the concert or hear it very well because all of these smokers were also playing their own music. The ones who weren't smoking or playing weird Latin music (it's like, know your holiday, idiots) were standing blocking the view of all us other plebeians relegated to respectful sitting. They were doing some sort of concert version of the Opera Carmen. I couldn't hear it.

Just as I was about to turn my plastered on brooding French face into a genuine sad Chad face, it happened.

The lights on stage became bright. Idiot smokers started standing around me. A powerful baritone voice starts booming this song in French.

Everybody starts singing along.

The entire lawn in front of me and all of the people who filled in behind us during the concert start singing in unison. I gather it must be the French national anthem, but I really have no idea. Whatever it was, it was the best part of the day thus far.

I remain on the outside looking in on this French culture that I don't understand and don't particularly enjoy, but in this moment the same people who were just ignoring the Opera and ruining the day for all of the other peasants turned and joined the people in the front who had been listening attentively. Even I stood and I had no idea what was going on. We all just stood up and started singing. And the weird thing, the melody of that song was stuck in my head the whole next day. I was just making up French-ish words to try and keep singing it. I finally felt included in France after being relegated to the role of touristy American for the entire first part. I finally liked France a little bit.

I will say, I was surprised the French national anthem was not a song from Les Mis, but in writing this blog post I realize my idea of France is constructed mostly on the foundation of two pieces of popular culture.

But guys fireworks. Check these out. They did fun things with the tower.

Red!

Rainbow!

And this was the end of the show.

Oh cool I didn't know that would be a gif. Neat. Technology. Anyway, all of the bright things in front of me that aren't fireworks are people with their phones. There are as many people from me to the tower as there are behind me. It was a wild event of human collective awesomeness.

I walked back home from the tower for the second time that day, except THIS time there were food carts! The time sped by a little faster with a basket of French fries and a Belgian beer. My feet hurt, but that's what you get for having a once-in-a-lifetime experience, methinks.

Just a few final things, as I think this will be my last post.

Paris is to New York City as Munich is to Chicago. I feel almost exactly the same about both. Walking through Paris is like walking through a painting. Walking through Munich is like walking in a real place. Lots of people want to live in a painting, I just don't think I could do it. Further confidence Chicago is the place I will spend the next portion of my life.

I'm writing this in London right now. I start my Shakespeare program on July 22nd. I'll leave a London post to Szolla and Liz, as they're the real travelers here. For me, it's kind of home for a little bit.

I hope you enjoyed reading the blog. I don't know for sure who's reading, excepting mine and Szolla's mothers, but I hope you squeezed a little fun out of it, you non-mothers out there. 

For a final time.

Warmest regards,

Chad Rhiness