Rock en Seine

This Parisian music festival was a blast.  When we were at the train station arriving in Paris, we went to a kiosk to buy Metro tickets, but our debit and credit cards weren't working (we've had some debit card issues).  So I left Daniel with the bags and went to find the ticket desk.  I wandered for a bit and couldn't find it so I went to a different kiosk.  There was a guy waiting behind me and he said, in a strong French accent, that he didn't understand why my card wasn't working and that he would buy me tickets and I could just pay him back.  We started talking and I told him we were in town for the Rock en Seine festival.  He was incredibly jealous and said that he had been trying for weeks to get tickets and even though he's a musician with friends as connections he couldn't get tickets.  It made me really excited to go!

Since we were late getting into France we missed a couple of the bands we wanted to see on Saturday night, but were able to catch the 2 we wanted to see most, LCD Soundsystem and 2 Many DJs.  During the last show we met a guy from Norway that apparently didn't care my boyfriend was with me.  Finally he found a new girl.  2 Many DJs was really fun.  I especially liked hearing "You Shook Me All Night Long," and singing it with foreigners that didn't actually know the words but tried!  This was a perfect ending to a terrible day.

The toilettes at the festival were pretty interesting.  There was some kind of stand which you walked up the stairs to.  The girls side had stalls with doors made of corrugated boxes cut in the shape of a door.  When you walked in, instead of a toilet you found...just a hole in the floor.  Weird!

The second night at the festival we sat with the other festivalites on the grass and listened to Fat Freddy's Drop, then found a really cool "bar" set up in one of the tents.  It was fancier than any festival stand I've ever seen.  It was decorated very French country with big wooden tables with wicker chairs and ornate bookcases behind the bar.  The best part was that they were serving champagne and pitchers of wine. They even gave you a plastic stemmed wine glass.  Not the typical festival drinks! 

Then we went over to see the Ting Tings which was a great show with lots of cheering, singing and dancing.  After the Ting Tings we made our way over to the food area.  I ordered French fries, because of course that's what I would have in France.  Daniel ordered the Americain because we really wanted to know what their interpretation of an American sandwich was.  Turns out its a baguette with your choice of hamburger or hot dog topped with fries in a very patriotic sleeve. Haha!

After dinner was Arcade Fire.  It was incredibly crowded for this show.  The French love this band and so does Daniel!  We got to see about an hour plus of the show when it started raining, and they cancelled the rest of the show.  By the time we made it to the Metro, we were soaked!  To make matters worse they were only stopping at 2 of the stops on the line so that they could go back to get more festival people as quickly as possible.  So we had to figure out a new way back to our hotel.  On our way back to the hotel we stumbled upon Notre Dame which was beautifully lit up making the river sparkle. Very romantic!