The 14th of July is France’s National Celebration Day (I guess comparable in celebration to our 4th). It celebrates the taking of the Bastille Prison in 1789, which had become the symbol of the abuse of power by the King and the royal class. Most importantly, this marked the beginning of the French Revolution.
A few weeks ago John and I decided that since we were in Paris for Bastille Day we should go all out. There are three ways to view the parade: on TV, seated with tickets or standing with the masses of people who also want to watch. Seeing as we never thought we’d get tickets, my trusted tour guide, Google, said in order to get the best view of the Bastille Day Parade we needed to be as close to the Arc de Triomphe as possible and in the first two rows of people. In order to achieve such a task we would have to be up and out by 5am. For those of you who have lived with me you might be thinking this is no problem but keep in mind we would have been running on 4 hours of sleep a night. John and I were excited. We figured it was totally worth it and didn’t mind the lack of sleep if we would have excitement to keep us going.
The week before Bastille Day John went to have dinner with his Dad, Joseph. He came home saying I had homework and needed to translate these cards. It took me a good five minutes to get what they were but low and behold his dad gave us tickets to the Bastille Day Parade! I cannot tell you how excited we were. Come the day of the parade I suppose you could say we slept in considering we left home at 7:30 instead of 5. The President is seated at the Place de la Concorde and so we were told it was best to be as close to there as possible. We couldn’t have done better: second row in the second box of seats next to the Place de le Concorde.
The military parade lasted a little over an hour and each thing was more impressive than the last. Every branch of the military had representatives march which meant we saw a wide array of bands, tanks, airplanes/jets, horses and even parachuters! Each year a different country is honored at the parade. This year it was India, so we were also able to see a few Indian Military branches march.
At the end we stuck behind to maybe catch a glimpse of the President. We were excited to have seen Carla from afar but then watched President Sarkozy walk closer to us. The next thing we realized he was right in front of us and John got to shake his hand! Perhaps the best quote of the day was when John turned around in complete shock and said, “Oh my g-d I just shook the president’s hand!”
As if that wasn’t enough excitement for one day, John and I decided to go back out later for the fireworks at the Eiffel Tower. Knowing there was a concert at the Champs de Mars (Johnny Holiday) and that it was the 120th anniversary of the Eiffel Tower we knew we had to get there early. So we packed some sandwiches, dessert and wine and headed to a bridge close by 3 hours before the fireworks started. They were beautiful. Sadly, from where we were there was no way to see the complete fireworks/flame show but we still got an excellent view. It took us at least an hour and a half to get home (for a 20 minute trip) because there were so many people. And though we were both exhausted, especially when we had to get up at 6:45 the following morning, it was totally worth it. We truly had quite the impressive Bastille Day in Paris.
Thank you Joseph for thinking of us. The day was that much more special with your help.
Check out our pictures from the parade here!
No comments:
Post a Comment