Passer une Nuit Blanche

The closest thing the French have to the expression "pulling an all-nighter" is passer une nuit blanche. However, the phrase doesn't have any of the negative connotations that "pulling an all-nighter" does, it simply means that you just stayed up the whole night -- whether to write a term paper or party until dawn (the French apparently don't make a distinction between the two). Yesterday, I had a nuit blanche! Every year, the city of Paris hosts a nuit blanche for the entire city -- where most cultural institutions stay open all night (7pm-7am), the metro and public transport stay open, and they bring in a bunch of cool art expositions and performances for people to see - for free! There were SO many things going on -- from free jazz concerts to performance art pieces based on Prince's "Purple Rain" (yep) to dancing to art exhibits in old churches. My friends and I met up at 10 at the Hotel de Ville and started to explore from there! We had made itineraries based on the Nuit Blanche website and things we had heard about, and headed out into the Marais.

The official poster.

The Marais is the neighborhood I live in, and it's pretty much at the center of Paris. There were a couple of different "hubs" for Nuit Blanch activities, and the Marais was one of them. However as soon as we started walking from the Hotel de Ville is became a madhouse. The streets were just teeming with people -- it was like being at a music festival in Paris, almost, except without the ever-present music playing. But there definitely was that festival atmosphere and everyone seemed to be having a good time. My friends and I realllyyy wanted to see the "Purple Rain" piece, but the line to get into the courtyard where it was on was three blocks long! So instead, we just walked past it and looked in -- basically they were making in rain in this courtyard, putting purple light on it, and giving everyone who came in clear purple umbrellas so they could walk around in it -- how neat is that? We also managed to stop in and see a couple of cool modern art exhibits in various buildings and gardens. However, the Marais was sooo crowded (and it was still early!) so we decided to head up to Montmartre to see what was going on around there.
Montmartre was also hopping, surprise, surprise! It seemed as if all of Paris had come out for this night. We stopped first in this old church and saw an amazing art-installation of what looked like chandeliers covered in quartz crystals. We then trekked on into a gallery that my friend's photography teacher had told them about. It was incredible! There was an installation that this artist did which was a screen (in live time) that drew what it saw in comic-book format, so you could see what you would look like in a comic sketch!

Comic book me!

So awesome. We then stopped into some theatres to watch little artsy films and saw this one where an artist drew birds on a wall in charcoal and then lit the whole thing on fire. Pretty neat. After that, we stopped in to have a snack/drink (it was like 3am) and then we began the long walk back to the Marais. We could have taken the metro for free at this time (!) but Paris only kept 2 lines open and they weren't anywhere near us, so we decided just to walk and enjoy the night and the festivities. I ended up getting home around 4:30 and didn't go to bed until 6 - so I had a true nuit blanche! What an experience. You have to love a city that provides (for free) a whole night of culture. Good work, Paris.