Le Quatorze Juillet

The 14th of July is also known as Bastille Day or the French national holiday. Just like the U.S. it's a day long celebration filled with picnics, music and, bien sur, fireworks! The celebration kicks off early that morning with a grand parade down the Champs Elysees. As Jen's parents were in town, we were interested in showing them the festivities, but got a good tip to stay away from the parade route due to enormous crowds and poor views. So, instead, we opted to watch the parade from the comfort of our apartment with a couple tasty croissants instead.

This was a full on military demonstration and was cool to see. It was definitely a serious affair, although it had a couple lighter moments

We thought we spotted Jean Claude van Damme leading the Foreign Legion down the street... Everyone's favorite, the duster division... And of course, the crepe cadre... Inspired by all this, I selflessly offered myself up to Jen's family and our friends to make a reconnaissance and then set up camp on Champ de Mars (literally, the field of the war god Mars). With a major concert that evening and fireworks on the Eiffel Tower to follow, we figured that we needed to stake a spot early that afternoon. I headed down around 3pm with picnic blanket, a few beers, sunglasses and a book and was suprised to find the area relatively open. I threw the blanket down in a choice spot, cracked open a beer and listened to the blues music played over the concert loudspeakers. I almost could have been in the U.S. laying there listening to Stevie Ray Vaughn on the national holiday. As time went on though, I realized it was going to be harder and harder to maintain the defenses around our camp.

3pm that afternoon 5pm... 6:30pm... I was the lone man until 6:15pm and was fighting to save the spot for 10 of us. You can imagine all the looks I got trying to keep people off our spot! Finally, reinforcements arrived and just in time for the big fuss of the evening...the French Elvis! You may have never heard of Johnny Hallyday, but I don't think there is a French man, woman or child alive who hasn't. They love him, and who wouldn't?? He played all his classic cover tunes that night in a 2 hour extravaganza of light and sound. The French icon finished up with a double encore and with only minutes to spare before the fireworks started. I think Jen's parents were secretly digging Johnny's style - her father even donned some sunglasses for the occasion! As this was an ideal setting for fireworks and this was Paris, we expected them to be good. We were wrong...they were amazing. And that is coming from a group who collectively had seen fireworks in Chicago, Boston, NYC, DC, Atlanta, San Francisco, and Milwaukee. Luckily some of the photos and videos turned out because I don't think I could adequately describe it. Nicely done French, nicely done...

Bastille Day