Wake up in the morning, and frantically get all of our packing done. By 10am, we have all of our stuff outside of the room. Michel needs to wander around the village a bit to retrieve the case for his glasses, Pimous needs to head into the village to finish checking out, and the girls show up. What the hell?! I though I was done with them! Why are we still hanging out with them? Anyway, get the car loaded up, head back to the village for coffee and coke (for the frenchies), and an OJ for me. They seem to think it’s funny that I’m drinking orange juice in the morning after a night of drinking (even though I don’t get hangovers), I’m laughing at the fact that French people can’t seem to go an hour without drinking coffee – and that they think Coke is a good “morning after” drink.
Finally hit the road, and about 20 minutes later have to stop so Michel can throw up some more (he really is a delicate little flower). Continue on for a bit, and then hit traffic. And I don’t mean the heading home from Tahoe at 30mph traffic, I mean dead stop, turn of the engine traffic. I fall asleep, and wake up to find us (finally) moving again. We get out of the mountains, and then Pimous and I switch driving duties. Unfortunately, since any tickets I get in his car will first find their way to his company – getting him in a bit of trouble – I have to actually obey the speed limits. Oh well. Pimous sleeps, I drive, eventually we switch back, and eventually he drops us off at home.
Now Michel and I have about 30 minutes to get showered and dressed to go back out to meet up with Roman (Michel’s best friend) and Lauren (an American living in Paris, and friend of a coworker of Michel’s). Head out, and go to the restaurant L’Arome in the 8th. The food is good, but this is clearly a trendy restaurant. Whatever. I’m just relieved after a week of full on French to finally have a native English speaker – an American! – to talk to. I start the night by making half-assed attempts at speaking French, but by the time dinner is done, Michel and Roman are having their own conversation in French, and Lauren and I are just speaking to each other English.
From the restaurant, we head over to a bar (forget the name… Michel/Lauren/Pimous, any of you remember?). Most of the people there are the same people I’d met briefly the previous Friday night before we all left for Les Arcs. Lauren and I sit together and keep talking. Roman is kind of standing around aimlessly, so Lauren invites him to join us, and the three of us talk for a bit. I notice that pretty much every time Roman says a word, he pretty much leans right into Lauren’s lap (and I later found out that he was rubbing his leg up against hers the whole time), so I get up to get a drink to give them a bit of – ahem – privacy. No more than few minutes go by, before Lauren and Roman are suddenly at the bar with me. Oh well, guess whatever Roman said/tried didn’t work (Roman is pretty well known in the group as one of those guys who can pretty much get any girl he wants).
Eventually, a couple of us decide to go dancing, except we have no idea where to go… technically it’s still too early to go out to the clubs (it isn’t quite midnight yet), and Lauren doesn’t know the Paris nightlife scene well enough to know where to go. Turns out there’s a dance floor right downstairs, which is awesome since they’ve been playing *great* American music all night at the bar. So, we head downstairs, and rock out to AC/DC, Survivor, Michael Jackson, etc. All of it in the previously referenced category of good old, normal, sing along (badly) at the top of your lungs music. A couple downsides: 1) The DJ is about as talented as I am, and mixes in and out of each song the exact same way. 2) It’s hot as hell down here. Now, I’m a pretty sweaty guy to begin with, but this was just outrageous. After about 30 minutes, I’m soaking wet. Seriously. Soaking wet. I’ve taken off my blazer, rolled up my shirt sleeves, and unbuttoned my shirt as much as I can with out scaring everyone away, and my shirt is completely soaked through and I’m dripping sweat. Meanwhile, I’m surrounded by all of these French people wearing jackets, sweaters, etc. What the hell? Don’t these people sweat? The only upside is that I’m so completely soaked that when I move through the crowd, all I have to do is say “you really don’t want to touch me”, people kind of look at the state I’m in, and promptly get out of my way… so at least I have ease of movement.
So, dance there, and finally around 2am, we go outside to go to another club. I’m still soaking wet, so of course I’m now I’m also freezing cold. We walk about 20 minutes over to La Planche (and either my shirt miraculously dried during the walk, or all the sweat just froze… I’m still not sure), a club that all of these guys used to go to when they were in business school together, and it looks like the age of the crowd hasn’t changed a bit. It’s basically all a bunch of college aged kids, with the occasional 40-something dude prowling on the outskirts. Even better, turns out at that the local student supports for the UMP party are having a party at the club tonight, and are all wearing stickers and/or shirts saying “J’Kiffe Sarko” (I love Sarko). Sarko is the name of the candidate – and, for the us, this would roughly be the equivalent of wandering into a nightclub and finding out it was “I love George W Bush” night and the place was packed with all the members of the local Young Republicans. Mimi thought this was one of the funniest things he’d seen in a long time, and set out on two missions: 1) to get me into a political argument with one of them (they all passed… none wanted to deal with an English speaker), and 2) to get one of the “J’Kiffe Sarko” stickers. None of the guys would give hime one, so instead he convinced Lauren to go flirt with one of them and to get his sticker. We hang out there drinking, dancing, and other foolishness until about 5. From there, we head to a Brasserie on the Champs Elysee. Food, more wine, and finally time to go home at 7.
