The Roof Is On Fire

It's traditional on the night before Bastille Day, for dances to be held at the firehouses and plazas around the city. So we decided to go to the fire station by the St. Sulpice Church, which was both close to our dorms and had a good (bad?) reputation for throwing an awesome party. It was also the building one of the girls mentioned one day as "literally vomiting hot guys out of the door".

So after dinner, we headed over, already late since the line was snaking around the block, and growing. Luckily, we found some people from the other dorm and did cutsies. Half an hour later, we were being escorted into the station courtyard,which was decked out with Christmas lights and glo-in-the-dark cardboard cut outs of the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower. All around the courtyard were little stands with firemen selling Heineken, Orangina, l'eau, and Coke Light, and in the back, a champagne tasting room.

The crowd was very very mixed with everything from little kids to grandpas running around and it was incredibly packed. Overall, the event had a down-home feel, and it was almost like being in a small town celebration. I was all ready for potato sack races and a pie eating contest.

Now the music was something else. I don't think I've ever heard such a continuous chain of cheese before in my life, not even at a wedding or a bar miztva. It was as if they were playing the Time/Life Eurotrash Love compilation on repeat. But I guess this is France ,and the french do love their fromage...Let's see "Everybody's Free" faded into "YMCA" which faded into "D.I.S.C.O." which faded into La Bouche's "Be My Baby" to "Holiday" to "Brother Louie" to Sabrina's "Boys" into "Last Night A DJ Saved My Life" and so on. The only things missing were "The Chicken Dance" and "The Macarena", and I'd bet three eclairs they played them after I left.

(Usually my eyes would be rolling so fast they'd be travelling back in time , but it was all kinda infectious and I even slightly audience-participated in the "arms up in the air" part of some songs. But I'll never admit it.)

And while everyone was jumping around, the firemen were on platforms taking their shirts off and dancing like some arson-combatting Chippendale's troupe as the girls in the crowd kept fighting each other to climb up to dance with them. If they made it, they would let them dance on the platform for about 30 seconds and then they would grab them and fling them back into the crowd.

It was pretty late when we finally fought our way through the crowd to get to get to the exit, but the mass of people outside had just gotten bigger. The line was still going around the corner, and I heard that at around 3a.m., people just started dancing in the street. Except for the Auburn Girls. They got there at 11p.m., waited over two hours in line and finally gave up. They just bought beers and headed home to get drunk.