sorry an update took so freakin' long

So well, wrapping up New Years Eve should be the first thing on the agenda.

We retreated from out nice little doze of our hotel rooms and headed out into the city. We packed warm and dry since the weather was bound and determined to pour as much water onto this city as it possibly could.

We went to a fantastic French bistro for a late dinner in what appeared to be the Red Light district. This is what I remember having:

A light fresh green salad with red cabbage and raw marinated duck breast with a really nice vinagrette dressing, a cut of beef (I don't remember what, maybe flank), and pommes. And of course for dessert, creme broulet. By that time it was about 11.

We found a metro station and climbed down into the most claustrophobic disaster that I have ever seen.

It was advertised that for New Years Eve and the morning of the 1st, the Metro was to be completely free. Apparently this rang true with every single Parisian. Every inch of space was filled by bodies pushing to get on the next subway. We finally smashed ourselves onto the station and caught a train. We literally had to mush ourselves into the mass of bodies inside the car. Getting out of the tubes was just as difficult. Since the subway was running full blast non-stop all heading towards the Eiffel station, quite a good number of people was created attempting to get to the exits. It was a river of people pushing through the tunnels.

After getting out of the Metro we found some spots looking up at the tower from across the shining river. We popped the bottle of champagne, and shared it between the four of us. When the clock struck midnight, the tower was illuminated in thousands of glittering and flashing lights, making it look like tiny diamonds were shooting off of it. The weird thing was that there were no public fireworks, only people in the crowd taking pot shots at the sky with illegally bought fireworks (they are illegal in France apparently).

Afterwards, the place to go is la Avenue de Champs Elysees. The street was completely shut down and everybody was walking south along it away from the Arc de Triompfe (or however you spell it, you un-confident French people...). Sooo much broken glass was strewn all about. All from champagne bottles too. We walked all the way back to the hotel (it was about 3:30) because we didn't want to get trapped in the Metro again.

And that is how you spend New Years Eve in Paris.