La nuit blanche = major letdown

Well last night was a bust. Jen, Tenny and I ventured out at about 10pm and were greeted by hordes of Parisians and tourists in the streets. Some foolish people tried to drive around the city and ended up in perpetual gridlock because people stopped obeying traffic signals! What we didn't realize was that the exhibits were actually inside Notre Dame and other buildings, and even the flow of people into Luxembourg Gardens was being controlled through only one of the numerous entrances. The result was lines of hundreds of people in front of each entrance, and there was no hope of getting in if you didn't want to wait for at least an hour. What the heck? If this night was supposed to make art accessible to the whole city and be a great celebration, it failed miserably because 90% of people were just milling around the streets smoking. I literally felt sick for the rest of the night - I probably ended up smoking half a pack from the air that I breathed in during that few hours! Anyway, the three of us were completely underwhelmed and frustrated and ended up going home at midnight after walking around the entire city in search of something to see. No luck. On a completely different note, I wanted to share photos of my walk through Luxembourg Gardens on Saturday. It was SO beautiful and almost every chair and bench was occupied. Little kids were out in droves, playing around the lake and on the lawns - and French kids are so incredibly cute! I think I freaked a couple parents out when I tried to surreptitiously take pictures of them :P There was also a breast cancer walk going on, which we noticed because of the bright pink shirts of the participants! However, in true Parisian style, they weren't just walking but "nordic walking" with ski poles. Don't ask me why. I'm going to take a book out there tomorrow morning, I want to take advantage of it while the weather still isn't that bad!