It's Party Time

A typical evening for my usually involves picking up some dinner before heading back to my room, where I promptly change into my pajamas. Which means I'm usually wearing flannel pants by 7 p.m. Okay, sometimes 6. And there was that one time the pajamas went on at 4:30.

But not tonight. June 21st marks the summer solstice, which in the Gallo-Roman days was celebrated with lots of music, dancing, and human sacrifices. Forever honoring tradition, not much has changed about this celebration in Paris (although they've toned down the whole human sacrifice thing).

Today was designated as the Fête de la Musique. Concerts, both planned and impromptu, crop up all around the city, but things don't start really heating up until nightfall. And because I resisted the warm and fuzzy calling of my p.j.'s, I decided not to let my effort go to waste and jumped on the next metro to Pont Alexandre III. People on the metro were singing, and all the teenagers were huddled together blocking walkways while talking excitedly about all the concerts I'm not cool enough to know about.

Then coming up the elevator of Metro Convention (my home turf), I heard guitars and singing and clapping -- the concert they were setting up when I left was now in full swing. A crowd squeezed into the little square, made up of all those too young and too old to go to whatever hot international act was playing at the Champ de Mars. Middle-aged mothers encouraged their children to get up the guts and go dance in the front, leaving them to sip their rosé from quart-sized water bottles in peace. The band played some crowd favorites (although I couldn't tell you what they were), and coincidentally some of my favorites, including a delightful rendition of Britney Spears' "Toxic." Oh, and the singer even tried rapping some old-school Eminem (I'm going to file that away under "one of the top ten funniest moments I've ever witnessed in my life").

I'm tired, it's well past my bed time, so all I have left to say is that it was really cool. And I'm looking forward to being serenaded to sleep by whoever is playing the saxophone outside my window.