The Champs-Élysées is the Times Square of Paris: everyone meets there for New Year's Eve. The avenue was teeming with people, packed in like matches in a box, from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de Concorde. It's a gigantic street.
Heading out from the hotel
Lots of light displays along the way
We were so close to the Arc! Such a good location.
Over a mile of people. I'd say the street was "milling with people," but there was no room to mill. Movement was on a need-to-shuffle basis.
Gearing up for midnight with the "bouteille mal fet"*
So there we were, waiting for the countdown to begin. We had unwrapped the tops of our champagne bottles and were waiting 'til midnight to pop the corks. In the last minutes before the countdown began, the crowd hushed in anticipatory silence. And then...pop! Kyle's cork had worked itself out and set itself off a full minute early. And the crowd went wild! Everyone, set on a New-Year's hair-trigger, heard the pop and thought, "That's it! It's begun!" Carousing. Cheering. Champagne shooting. Yep: my brother single-handedly managed to begin the entire Parisian New Year a minute early.
We laughed hysterically.
Post-popping revels:
*Bouteille mal fet: The ill-made bottle. 'Le Chevalier Mal Fet' is a name for Lancelot, and carries connotations of shame and being ill-fated, i.e. 'this star-crossed love for Guinevere may seem fine for now, but it ain't gonna be pretty.'
Your footnote. I laughed.
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