Sunrisin': Past Midnight In Paris

Several weeks ago my friend Rebecca and I, both night-owl writers here in Paris, agreed that it would be nice to see the morning once in awhile. I surmised that instead of trying to get up super-early to watch the sun rise, we should just stay up all night (since that's the most fun way to see the sun rise anyway). Also, it's pretty cool to see the way a city works late into the night. But since I'm always paranoid about missing the last Métro, I rarely stay out that late. Suddenly, I really wanted to see the sun rise in Paris. And thus a beautiful idea was born: Past Midnight In Paris.

We figured it would be good to be out on a weekend night, like Friday, so the city wouldn't be completely dead. and met up at chic taco joint Candelaria to start off the evening. The secret backroom was very cool but though our cocktails were incredibly delicious, they were wayyyyyy overpriced.

So we moved to the more casual front room, with very cheap (3€) tacos that hit the spot and stood up to any taco I've had in NYC or Arizona (but not quite as good as Mexico).


After tacos and cocktails, it was midnight and we still had hours and hours to go. So we stopped for a café, and after that we wandered toward a salsa spot we'd heard of.







You'd be surprised how many people are out at 1:30am. And later.









Mom, this one's for you.
 


 As usual.



We ended up at La Peña, a (literally) underground salsa club where the music was fabulous and it was so assured that you'd be dancing that you were required to check all bags (and inhibitions) at the door. We were not left alone for more than 90 seconds before asked to dance.
 
Rebecca and I had many grand plans of places to see that night, but we danced for a good couple of hours and after that, we took a break to stop for a glass of wine and some camembert at Le Depart Saint-Michel, which I've passed a million times but never actually stopped at. At 4:30am it was devoid of tourists and quite interesting. We sat there, talked and ate some great cheese for a long time, and during that strange hour I realized it was too late for normal people.... stories were now being created all around us.










Our plan had been to be at the Eiffel Tower by sunrise, but before we knew it, the sky turned that imminent shade of blue. You know. When the darkness is doomed, because light is rushing fast into the sky. I suggested we walk toward the Tower along the Seine.





I can't adequately describe how beautiful, deadly calm, quiet and peaceful it was. It was eerily wonderful.

And suddenly there it arrived... the sun. We stopped. I crouched down past the cobblestone and to the edge of the river, and we watched the sun rise, in late, early, peaceful silence.

In Paris.



Evolution of a sunrise, and us.

After that moment, we were jazzed to make it to the Tower, so we headed across the river to the Métro.

While walking past the Louvre, we saw these three very young dudes who must have had a WAY more interesting night than us.

Before long we were at the Tower, just as the sunrise settled into true morning. There was almost nobody on the Champs de Mars lawn - a truly rare sight. The only other people there were sanitation workers and an old lady who goes to the lawn every morning to collect bottle corks for her brother in California.

I showed Rebecca my best cartwheel.



It was too early to go to the top, otherwise we certainly would have. Next time maybe. Instead, we simply marveled at the steelwork. Or, as my dad might say (as he did when we visited the Statue of Liberty and I was too afraid to go to the top), "Let's look up this lady's skirt."

It was good anyway, because we were starting to get seriously hungry. Though to us it was not really breakfast time, it was dessert time, and we felt a fresh pain au chocolat et café would be a solid compromise.

We were so early that we caught the first batch of pains au chocolats coming out of the oven. We sat down on some nearby church steps and marveled at the morning.

We were done with our epic night, but we didn't feel quite ready to go home. We needed.... a.... nightcap?

 

 I can't tell you how many funny looks we got drinking wine and coffee at 7:30 in the morning.

And then the hours started to set in. The true fatigue and bizarre sense of reality that comes with staying up way too late started to make our brains fuzzy and funny (the wine and coffee combo probably didn't help). Rebecca did the Robot.

And on the way to the bus home, I spotted the first fallen leaf of autumn and it was AS BIG AS MY FACE.

That night was one of the best of my life, I must say. It was tremendously fun to be wandering around Paris with someone equally enthusiastic, down so many streets quiet and dark and beautiful in their darkness, finding pockets of life here and there. Seeing the sun rise over the Seine was an experience I'll never, ever forget. I think this is one thing everybody should do at least once if they have the chance and stamina. I want to do it again, and maybe the next time, I'll make it to the Eiffel Tower by sunrise.