Nice Party Bus and Thoughts

Last night, we took a party bus to Monaco.

And it was ridiculous.

(La Brasserie in Monaco)

Now, a bunch of people ask me, "Well was it good-ridiculous or bad-ridiculous?" And my answer is, if you truly understood what ridiculous meant, you would know that ridiculous encompasses both good and bad, crazy, stupid, lame, awesome, fun. Just completely over the top. Ridiculous implies something so far from the average every day experience that it is neither good nor bad, just, well....ridiculous. You can love ridiculous or you can not love ridiculous. I am personally a huge huge fan.

Party buses sound more glamorous in theory than they are in practice, but are still immensely fun. But how did this come about??

Two weeks ago, my roommate Jenn met a guy at Baoli (the big fancy club in Cannes) who's a promoter for the "Nice Party Bus" (Nice, referring to the city in France) which is a large company and offered a special deal for those of us at the College International to attend this weekend. About 27 or so of us (23 girls, 4 boys, which is a pretty standard ratio for life at the College) signed up, and there we all were at 9:30PM last night, dressed to the nines waiting to get on a charter bus to take us to Nice.

The premise of the party bus (that was told to Jenn) was that it stopped at 3 pubs on the way to a club called La Brasserie in Monaco. Immediately it was explained that there was a miscommunication. We would be stopping once, in Nice, to switch onto the actual "party bus" meet up with the other people who had signed up for the event. The first bus itself played loud music and strange music videos. We all were laughing and talking, but everyone was kind of wondering where the stripper pole was. This is a party bus, right? We went to two bars in Nice, one down the street from the other, that were kind of cramped and awkward, but there were

enough of us that it was fun. The second bus, the actual "party bus" was no more of a party bus than the first one except that it was double-decker, and it was...a party. They played bangin' music and gave us drinks and shit started to get a little hectic. The ride to Monaco was probably like 45 minutes, and I had an absolute blast. I sat next to this kid (pictured at right in that very unflattering photograph) who was very gay and very into Beyonce, and we were dancing and singing and being ridiculous. Foreign kids know how to party on a bus to Monaco, I'll just say that. Once we got to Monaco we arrived at the club, which was half indoor-half outdoor and very very crowded. We were technically "VIP" which really only meant we had guaranteed access to the club, but it was exciting to just walk in. The rest was pretty standard: too long line for the bathroom, deafening and for the most part good music. At one point we were up towards the front of the stage and were invited onstage to dance (there must have been like 12 of us). It was thoroughly not embarrassing (the big DJ had started his set and we just sort of there partying, it wasn't the "Booty Shaking Contest" that had happened earlier in the evening, which featured what may have been actual prostitutes. Who knows. It's Monaco. 0% crime rate.) The DJ was from America and had a lot of trouble trying to speak French to the crowd. It was pretty comical. Being onstage with everyone was incredibly exciting, and we saw everyone in the crowd and just....yeah. It was very very legit.

(The DJ stage where we were dancing)

Everyone's feet had started to hurt at that point, so Jenn and I crashed an empty VIP booth outside, and were slowly joined by various members of our party. Despite the waiter's brief protest that this "wasn't our table" (which obviously, it wasn't) he let us stay, and it was really chill and fun and someone took pictures which will probably surface in a slow and embarrassing way. If a good one comes up I'll add it to this entry. I was sitting next to Gill, the Beautiful Blonde Irish Girl from the College (I can't describe her any other way, she's very famous for this) who was very much into taking pictures, so there should be at least a few. The waiter brought a bottle of expensive champagne to the table, which he said wasn't for us and wasn't ordered by us, but he didn't know where the table's actual occupants were, so whatever, he wouldn't look if we so happened to drink it. Which we did. At that point though, it was getting to be 3AM, which, regardless of if you're at a club, is really late. We all started to get really tired around the table, just sort of waiting for the bus. There was some drama with the idiot promoter and then eventually, thank the lord, we all got on a bus back to the College, where we arrived, around 5, basically asleep. And today has been spent sleeping on and off, watching movies, and consuming large quantities of food, and that is what I did this weekend, thank you for reading. :)

The fun and craziness of last night was a well-needed respite from what has been the newest stage of culture shock here at the College, which is depression, and a desperate need to go home. We made it a month. Cool. Done with France now. One of the girls from our group is actually going home, which has been a weird thing for us, and it feels like this is a pivotal moment in our emotional studying abroad arc. After a month, you can't even pretend this is a vacation anymore. I feel like after this, if you survive out this weekend, this moment, this turning point, it's time to enter into a whole new phase of assimilation. We've built our little lives here, and now it's time to live them. I'm glad we could have such a bang this weekend to help ease this curb-rounding, and I'm very glad I'll be traveling more soon. It brings the adventure back, and seeing new things just sort of...refreshes you. AIFS is taking us to Paris next weekend for 4 days, which I'm very excited about. I imagine it shall be all at once crazy and beautiful and stressful. There is literally no other city in the world surrounded by such a romantic notion. I imagine, like with most things, Paris is a very glamorous theory and perhaps shall not be that much of one in practice.We shall see though! I'm very excited to go and to see it and discover for myself.

Missing you all tons and tons. Really. <3