"I lace my Chucks, I walk the aisle. I take my pills, the babies cry, all I hear is what’s playing through the in-flight radio. Now every word of every song I ever heard that made me want to stay is what’s playing through the in-flight radio."
~Jack’s Mannequin, Bruised.

I’m writing this from the plane taking me back to the US... am not particularly THRILLED by that, but am none the less going to tell you the story of the last few days I spent in Paris.

Thursday night was the Erasmus party– a party at a club in Paris every week that is free for international students. I’ve been a few times, but this week Rachel’s boyfriend and his friend were in town, so Rachel and I decided we ought to take them. We got to the club around midnight, sat down in a corner for about a minute and a half, and then hit the dance floor. The night is a complete blur for me– I had so much fun, we danced so much and so fast and so wonderfully that I didn’t really pay any attention to anything but the four of us. I sweated through my top by the end of the third song, but I mean, we were at a club in France (called Les Planches, which is one of my favorite French words– it means "The Boards.") which was probably not air-conditioned, so whatever. On our way into the club, I realized that every time I have attempted to dance with European guys at a club or a concert or whatever, it is always the utmost in hilarious.
(To begin with, the concept of me dancing at all is mildly amusing for anyone lucky enough to watch. I learned to dance as a summer camp staff worker, which I never thought would permanently affect me until I was at a club in Paris one time and a guy of European nationality who had lived in America came up to me and asked if I had ever worked at a summer camp. Ouch.)
So anyway, me dancing at all= funny. European guys dancing= amazing and funny. Me attempting to keep up with them= so pitiable it’s ridiculous.

We walk into the club on Thursday, and I realize we have just arrived WITH two European guys (easy to forget since they both speak English) and I got a little nervous. We walked out onto the dance floor, and immediately I realized my worries were needless– apparently my European dancing experience has been limited to guys from the CONTINENT of Europe and not the UK (Rachel’s boyfriend is Irish, the other was English). This is not to say that they danced like Americans (because they didn’t, and so, for the night, neither did I), but the one I danced with most all of the night was so good it didn’t really matter how he danced, I still kept up. So we start dancing like absolute crazy people to the most awesome European kind of songs (things you never get to hear at American clubs), and suddenly I look up and realize there are six people on the dance floor, and we are four of them.

"Rachel!" I yelled over the shoulder (and thus probably into the ear) of the English guy we had come with. "Why is it clearing out?"

"WHAT?" she bellowed back.

"WHY ARE WE THE ONLY ONES HERE?" Now, I don’t know if you have ever BEEN on a dance floor when you are one of only two couples out there– the club had not emptied, everyone had just migrated from the dance floor to the tables around it, because they were exhausted and not as hardcore as Rachel, Frank, Adam, and I. But suffice it to say, it’s quite an experience dancing pretty much ALONE with a whole audience of Europeans watching you. Since we hadn’t realized we were alone, we were still going at it furiously, dancing our little ex-patriate hearts out.
Rachel looked around and realized I was right about being the only ones on the floor, took her phone out and yelled back, "BECAUSE IT’S 4am!"
The Metro in Paris closes on weeknights at 1230ish and opens back up at 530am. We knew we wouldn’t be able to make it home BEFORE it closed, so we thought we would catch a cab, walk, or take the night bus home from where we were... But it was 4am, and we were all still going strong. So we did what any hardcore rockstars would have done in our shoes– we moved to the dead CENTER of the dance floor and kept on dancing. That night definitely goes on the list of one of my favorite nights in Paris– I love going dancing (it’s pretty much the only time I really ENJOY sweating) and I love good music and I love the friends I was hanging out with and most of all, I love being young enough that, at 430am when I had been up since 8am that morning, I was still going strong enough to not WANT to stop dancing. We kept the party going until 530am, when the club lights came on, killing the mood and sending us walking to the Metro in the gray dawn of the Champs des Elysees. We went back to Rachel’s apartment, debating all the way what we would do upon arrival ("Let’s make omelettes! With cheese and lardons!" "No, let’s go shower, we all stink like our own sweat and other people’s cigarettes!")

And upon our arrival, we did nothing but lay around rubbing each other’s shoulders until we realized it was 8am and we should maybe go to sleep, so I headed back to my place (meaning I had to get on the Metro at 815am on a Friday morning, wearing a strapless black top and sparkly black shoes with eyeliner all over my face... standing there with all the businessmen trying to look like a legitimate person was kind of difficult– my outfit screamed that it had been a crazy night, the wild look of my sweaty ponytailed hair confirmed it). I’ll miss clubs like that, nights like that, friends like that in the US. I remember it hazily even now– a song, a wild dance, the golden lights sparkling in my face as we all got hotter and hotter...

I love being young, and I love that I am going to work the ultimate YOUNG person’s job for the summer... Intern at a record label. ROCK. ON.

Saturday was my last full day in Paris, and Rachel’s 21st birthday. Her boyfriend Frank was playing in a Gaelic football game (if you don’t know what that is, combine every sport you can think of, add violence and imagine everyone playing it yelling unintelligible things in thick Irish accents), so Rachel, Adam and I were going to go watch the game and picnic it up. Here is what our picnic consisted of, and why I am going to miss Europe so much:
Half a watermelon
Two baguettes
Half a wheel of reblochon cheese, and a decent sized wedge of brie
Five fresh apricots
Three peaches
A bag of cherries
Two giant bottles of water
Two jambonneaux
A bottle of Pol Remy framboise, which means, for you anglophones, Pol Remy Raspberry.

Framboise is this drink that tastes like KoolAid, is bright pink, fizzy, and costs about 1Euro80. Rachel and I like it because it is the absolute epitome of girly... For the same reason, Frank and Adam never wanted to touch it. But in a fit of classiness, we forgot cups to pour it into. So we have a bottle of framboise to drink, and nothing to drink it out of. But relax! We were not to be deterred, deciding it was better to drink from the bottle than face the risks of dehydration.

Jambonneaux are these... meat things that Rachel and I have found ourselves periodically buying throughout the year when we find ourselves having dinner at her apartment. It’s some cut of ham that comes smoked on a bone and wrapped in... well... skin. They are pretty much the best thing I have ever eaten, and also the most caveman-like. When Rachel and I eat them at her apartment, we make a huge mess– attempting in the bleachers of a football stadium was ridiculous. We were afraid we would be searched on our way in like in the US (yeah right), and since we had brought a sharp knife to cut the jambonneau, we figured we ought to hide it. So we inserted it into on the baguettes we had brought with us, like a file in a cake.

(P.S. A jambonneau is HUGE. There were three of us eating it, and thus absolutely no reason why we needed TWO of them, except that we are hardcore.) We realized quickly the knife was not working without a table to press on, so we gave up that plan and commenced to eating the jambonneaux with our hands. Rachel and I, being the only ones that had ever had it, began.

So imagine with me, if you will: here are two 21-year-old American girls, one of whom is fairly classy (Rachel) and the other of whom dresses like a vegan emo chick, even though she is not (me). With them is a 21-year-old English guy with a Hugh Grant-esque accent, looking every bit like an English rockstar, eyeing the Americans over the top of his glasses as they remove two giant hunks of pink meat from a greasy paper bag and begin to gnaw on them. I took a bite of mine, sighed contentedly, and held it out to Adam.
"Wanna try?" I asked through a mouthful of jambonneau. [This is the other thing I enjoy about being young: we didn’t even ask each other if it was cool to gnaw after each other, we just did it.]
"I think I am good for the moment, thanks," he answered in his extremely aristocratic-sounding accent, shaking his head at the two of us.

"Hey, can you pass the framboise, please?" Rachel asked, setting down her chunk of meat gingerly on the bag. Adam, the only one left with clean hands, handed her the bottle and Rachel took a swig, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand because we had already run out of napkins.
She and I continued to gnaw thoughtfully for awhile, trying to keep up with the game and not drop our slippery hunks of pig. Finally Adam became acclimated to the idea that the girls he was with were half-cavewomen and held out his hand for the jambonneau, taking a cautious bite (he did not, to his credit, dive in and get grease all over his face the way we did).

"Rachel, what are you doing about your hands? I am so... sticky and greasy now," I asked after awhile.
"Yeah, I was just kind of going for the rub-them-together-briskly and then wipe-them-on-your-pants method."
"Ok, as long as you have a plan," I replied, happily doing the same, ruining the pants I was supposed to wear on my ten-hour flight home the next day. We soon finished the framboise, and more importantly converted this previously-elegant and classy Englishman to the ways of Pig-Eating.
After the game, we all went home, cleaned up and dressed up, and met at a restaurant on my favorite street in Paris (Rue Saint-Andre-des-Arts, just for the record) for a celebratory dinner of the world famous Aztec hot chocolate at La Jacobine. I had brought a cake for Rachel, which we planned on eating right afterward in front of Notre Dame, but we got distracted and ended up at Le Rhubarb, a cheap student hangout in the Latin Quarter. We drank appletinis made with fans of sliced apples in the low-ceilinged vaulted basement that used to be a wine cellar until the bright lights blinded us and the bartender told us they were closing.
"But... but... it’s only 130am!"
"Yeah, sorry, mate," he said, his tone clearly indicating he was anything but. We headed to an Irish bar closeby that is stationed in a neighborhood with strict noise ordinances– we tapped on the metal door, a tiny trap door was slid open, and one of us said, in French, "Ahh... bonsoir?" not really knowing the protocol for getting into a real speakeasy. They let us in, but it was so crowded and obnoxious we left and walked most of the way home in the cold before we found a cab.
Walking into Rachel’s apartment at 430am (again), we finally lit the candles and ate the cake, and, as he took his last bite, Adam (the English guy) suddenly piped up with "So, ladies... is there any of that pig left?"
He’s been converted.

We had no jambonneau left, so he and I left to go buy breakfast at about 5am from Moulin de la Vierge, my favorite boulangerie in the 7th. Adam took French in high school, about as much as I took Spanish, so he must have spoken it pretty well back in the day. Now his French has deteriorated into this kind of Pepe LePew accented English, but he still understands a lot. We walked into the boulangerie, I ordered us a baguette and a Viennoise au Chocolat, trying to act like it was normal that two 21year old anglophones walked into this bakery about two minutes after they opened, wearing last night’s clothes. We walked back to Rachel’s apartment, armed with our breads, and got to her door when we realized we didn’t have her key. No big deal, we knock. So we did.
And no one answered.

And just then the hallway light died, leaving us standing in this pitch dark hallway at 530am, knocking on a door in an effort to not wake the whole building.

"KNOCK LOUDER!" I hissed to Adam, who had only barely tapped the door with his baguette.
"Shhh!" he whispered– we could hear voices from behind the neighbor’s door. I knocked again. Nothing. Finally I remembered Rachel’s doorbell– every time it’s rung, it shorts out everything in her studio.
"Fine," I thought, "if they can’t hear our knocking, they’ll surely notice when all the lights go out."
I rang. I heard it buzz and then the click of all the circuits in her room flipping. No one came to the door. Just then the bathroom door down the hall was thrown open.
Adam and I both jumped out of our skin at the noise (and the thought of the awkwardness of the two of us standing in the dark in the hall, wielding warm loaves of bread). So Adam dove behind me, then reached around me, holding his bread out like a peace offering, and said, sounding EXACTLY like the Pink Panther, "Bonjooooooour!" as though he expected the girl at the end of the hall to take the bread. I stood frozen, vaguely aware of the bread he was holding out in front of me, more aware that I should try to make things less awkward. I knocked his hand down, afraid she would think the bread WAS a gift and take our breakfast. Confusedly, I grinned at her, shrugged, and stood there frozen until she disappeared into her room.
"WHAT was that?" I hissed as soon as she had left.
"What?" he asked, genuinely confused at what the problem had been.
"You tried to give away our breakfast! And you left me to fend her off by myself– she totally saw you scrambling to get behind me, you know."
"Behind you? What are you talking about?"
"Nevermind. We still need to get into this room."
"Why? We got the breakfast out here."
"They probably fell asleep."
"It’s dark out here, you know. We could eat breakfast out here and then go to sleep."
"In the hallway?"
"Yeah, I guess it’s a little weird..." he acknowledged, turning to lean on the door at the exact moment Rachel opened it sleepily from the inside. He collapsed into her, and she yawned, surprised.
"Where have you been?" she asked.
"Getting breakfast!" he answered, "But then you didn’t answer the door for like 45 minutes, so we’ve been having a hall party."
"FORTY-FIVE MINUTES!?" Rachel shrieked. "We fell asleep... I had no idea! Why didn’t you knock?"
Adam and I looked at each other and burst into hysterics.
"Never mind," I said, "we brought food!" so we sat down at the table and ate baguette and viennoise until our eyes could hardly stay open, at which point I walked to the Metro for the last time and headed to my wonderful apartment on Square Alboni, where I had just over two hours to get my stuff packed completely and downstairs for the cab. I won’t write about the rest– about the ten hours in one plane and the three hours in another to get me home... I’ll just tell you that those last few days were wonderful for me– surreal enough to keep my mind off of my imminent return to the US, fun enough to make me not care, and exciting enough to keep me up all night long... twice.

Live from 30,000 feet over your head,
B