Yesterday was the French equivalent of our July 4th. I must say, they really get it right here. By the end of the day, I was ready to trade in my passport for a French one.
I began the day waking up to the sound of the national guard's horse division practising their trumpet and drum routine that they would be playing in the parade. I stumbled out of bed and we had coffee and went to the park. Sarah and our friend Beth went running, and I sat on a park bench and tried to see just how low I could get my pulse. On the walk back along the river, we watched all the different French air force planes fly directly over us, including the jets that were rigged to disperse tricolore (red, white, blue) out their exhaust. A while later I was hanging out on our balcony, camera at the ready, to see if the planes were doing a second pass. They didn't, but several clusters of helicopters flew over, and monster tanks went hauling butt down rue Saint Antione. After a while I heard strains of the same music I heard waking up. I bolted down to the street in front of the Republican Guarde, and watched 250 horses with riders in full Frenchie dress gear. They were amazing. Because we weren't on the official parade route, there weren't many people around, and I was able to get 5-10 feet away. When I arrived, I had no idea how many of them were in the parade. I watched them file by 3 horses across, and they just kept going forever. Horses kept turning the corner, and streaming past. Everyone looked extremely gallant in their full dress uniform, shiny plumed metal helmet, and sword.
In the evening we were lucky enough to be invited over to our friends' (Jim and Stephanie) apartement in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. We did the appropriate toast to Bastille Day, and hung out in air conditioned comfort. We headed over to Champs de Mars with the masses. Jim went scouting for good places on his bike, now we know where to head next year. We ended up squished against the Ecole Militaire at the back of Champs de Mars. Since they moved the fireworks this year to this side of the Eiffel tower, lots of space was blocked off.
The 3 tons of fireworks were choreographed to Mozart, that was pumped out across the crowd by speakers. They were the most amazing fireworks I've ever seen, with a special French creative flare. The French are fairly quiet watching fireworks, in the US we are much less reserved. The lighting on Ecole Militare, and being squished in the crowds meant Suzy didn't get much in the way of pictures, so her memory will have to suffice. After the show we broke out another bottle of the bubbly while waiting for the crowd to thin out. We walked home, which took quite a while, we dragged into the apartment, happy and exhausted at 2am.
Note to prospective invaders of France: 10:30am on 14 Juillet 2007 would be a great time to sneak in and take over this place. All things military and all high ranking officials are consumed fussing with the big parade.
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