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In order to be well rested for the upcoming evening's events Amy and I napped in the hotel until around 9 p.m., but I had a hard time sleeping since I was deathly afraid that I might fall asleep and for some reason the alarm clock wouldn't work and I would not wake up until the next morning, and if I had flown all the way around the world to celebrate the beginning of the Year 2000 in Paris and then slept through it, well, I just don't think I would ever be able to forgive myself!!! Fortunately that did not happen and we woke up in time to freshen up, eat a little pre-millennium snack of sandwiches and fruit and then generally got ourselves totally excited about the fact that we were in Paris, France on December 31, 1999 and were on the cusp of welcoming in the 21st Century at what was sure to be one of the greatest millennial celebrations in all the world!!! In honor of the occasion, Amy placed Prince's 1981 song, "1999" into her portable CD player and with headphones in place, we danced around the hotel room grooving out to the song of the evening! To further celebrate the moment, Amy broke out two pair of Las Vegas issue glow-in-the-dark Year 2000 shaped plastic eye-glasses, which we immediately energized and put on then danced around in the dark reveling in the thrill of the whole scene! By 10 o'clock we were good and ready to set foot to pavement and headed out along La Seine river for our 40-minute walk to the Eiffel Tower celebration zone. Due to the terrible storm just a few days before, the Seine river was a murky, rushing torrent overflowing its banks which negated the possibility of walking along the river front, but it was a minor disruption. The view, despite the wild waters of the Seine, was really beautiful and terribly exciting. Around us was a trickle of people, at first, walking along the river towards the illuminated Eiffel Tower off in the distance, then, the closer we got to the Eiffel district, the more dense that original trickle had become. Along the river are blocks and blocks of apartment buildings, each with their own millennial bashes underway replete with thumping music and screams of laughter and cheer! People were waving to everyone below from their balconies above and wishing all of us passers-by a Bonne Année and Happy New Year!
Upon butting up to this agglomeration of people Amy and I clasped hands and without hesitation dove directly into its abstruse center. It seemed that everyone in France had the same desire to be front row and center for the coming fireworks celebration and no-one seemed deterred by the apparent impossibility of moving towards the tower. I had never seen so many people in my entire life and once Amy and I had made the decision to enter the mass there was no turning back. The crowd moved forward and only forward. There was no possibility of ejecting ourselves out of the swarm of moving bodies once we had became a part of it. Slowly Amy and I moved forward, not because there was any open space to move forward into, but rather, because the tens of thousands of people directly behind us were forcing us ahead. To stand still meant to be forced forward. To turn to the side meant to be rejected and pushed on by those groups of people who had already entrenched themselves along the stationary scales of this snaking human river. To collapse in exhaustion, as many had done, meant to be trampled. Moving forward was the only option and I did not defy. But there were moments that we simply could no longer move forward. There comes a time when the number of people in any given area can not be exceeded. Suddenly, around 11:10 p.m., we had reached such an impasse.
Moments later, just as we had reached dead-center position in front of the Eiffel Tower and the Iéna Bridge, the river of movement had poured out into an ocean of open space and Amy and I were ejected into an expanse of tranquility. It was bizarre. Even surreal. But here we were standing directly in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris at the final moments of the 20th Century. Rising majestically in front of me was not only the Eiffel Tower, but also a dream. For years I had daydreamed about wanted to be in Paris on the dawn of the Year 2000 and there I was - standing right in the middle of my fantasy. It was marvelous! But before Amy and I had time to contemplate the sheer magnitude of coolness confronting us, the final seconds of the 1900s had come racing to a close and the Eiffel Tower suddenly exploded forth in an awing spectacle of fireworks and light, the likes of which I will probably never again see for the rest of my life!
"We've done it!" it seemed everyone was feeling. After a century of unimaginable horrors of war and unparalleled advancements in technology and prosperity, we had not destroyed ourselves and the world as many had predicted we would, but rather, for one moment we could all celebrate in our victory of having finally reached the Year 2000 in one piece. And at this very instant, in one peace.
After an amazing display that had lit up the night sky as bright as day, the fireworks show had come to an end and the crowd slowly began to disperse. Amy and I stayed around the area for a little while, taking pictures and chit chatting with the people around us, and we ended up talking to a small group of three Pakistani guys who had invited us out for a little drink, but as we started walking and made our way up to Les Champs-Elisées boulevard we sighted an intersection packed with at least several tens of thousands of people and since the guys had to maneuver through the crowd to get back towards their hotel, Amy and I decided to turn around and start making our way back to our own hotel. It was already around 2 a.m. and since the metro had closed and the streets were clogged full of cars and people we were left with only our own four feet to transport us back to our beds.
After the phone call Amy and I continued our way weaving in and out of neighborhood after neighborhood and eventually found the Seine River and worked our way back to the hotel with the illuminated and now sparkling Eiffel Tower behind us in the distance. It would take us two hours to walk back to our hotel from L'Arc de Triomphe in our completely sober state of mind, arriving finally at 4 a.m. Once back in our room, we realized that a trip on the French/Swiss TGV high-speed train lay ahead of us in the morning and we needed all the rest we could get, so without much delay we jumped into bed, wished each other a Happy Year 2000 and fell asleep. :-) |
During
our walk I was surprised how few people there actually seemed to be
walking towards the tower with us, all things considered. What I
didn't know was that about 1 million people had already descended
into the area right next to the Iéna bridge connecting both
banks of the Seine River to the Eiffel Tower and that at any moment
we would round a corner and have to face this mass of humanity! And
eventually we rounded that corner and when we saw the mass, all I
could think was, "There's no way in hell Amy and I are going to
be able to get anywhere near the Eiffel Tower." Literally, when
we came upon it, it was a wall of human beings clogging the streets
for as far as the eye could see! Fortunately it was only 10:40 and we
still had a good hour and twenty minutes to try to force our way an
extra 100 or so meters/yards to get right up on the Iéna
bridge for an unobstructed view of the bridge, less than which I was
not willing to settle.
In
such a moment the only options are to either increase the size of
the area containing the enlarging numbers of people or to crush the
swelling numbers into the same small, unchanging space. Since it was
impossible to distend the physical size of the area all of us were
being crammed into, we were forced to accept the fate of being
crushed. For several minutes the crowd stood frozen - slowly being
squeezed together as if entangled in the fierce grip of a hungry boa
constrictor. With every breath squeezed out of the mass, an equal
amount of strain physically began building up among the individuals
cemented in this madness. I would feel a fleeting push to the right,
then it would halt, then a sharp thrust to the left, and again
paralysis. But like a mass of earth smashed along an enormous fault
line, eventually something must give way - the energy must be
unleashed - and frighteningly, like a violent bolt of lightening, the
army of people was ripped in half by its own friction and suddenly a
mass of people lurched forward. It was as if the gates of an immense
dam had burst open and a flood of chaos had erupted forth. Forward
motion was suddenly everywhere and we were sucked into the gushing
torrent. The forward rush quickly accelerated to that of a brisk jog
and one misstep meant instant trampling. Amy and I clutched hands
like we were on a sinking ship and just let ourselves be pushed be
the force enveloping us.
The
tower began its eruption at the base of its steely, arching legs and
the fireworks quickly raced their way up the narrowing spine of the
structure and straight up to the highest levels of the fiery
observation deck perched above the heart of Paris. I had vaguely
assumed that there would be a fireworks display somewhere in the
vicinity of the Eiffel Tower, but I had no idea that le feu du siècle
would actually be launched directly off the tower itself! It was
truly awesome! Like a vision straight out of a dream! During the
whole display Amy and I jumped in excitement and oooh'd and ahhh'd
right along side one-and-a-half million of our closest friends!
Screams of "Happy New Year!" reverberated in all directions
in innumerable languages in what was surely one of the greatest
displays of excitement and joy in the history of the world! Bottles
of champagne burst open and sprayed everyone in a rain of
intoxication! Strangers hugged strangers, Amy and I hugged each
other, and everyone was simply in a state of bliss!
We
didn't have a map of the city on us, so getting back to our hotel
was going to be a hit-and-miss affair, but from what I remembered,
all we had to do was make it back down to the Seine and from there we
could follow the river bank back to our hotel. First stop along our
long trek back to the hotel was L'Arc de Triophe which was abask in
the blinding glow of bright white light - its gorgeous arc
illuminated against a newly reborn millennial midnight sky. Then we
walked down a long boulevard parallel to the Seine and we snaked our
way through many of the disorientlingly high 19th and early 20th
century apartment blocks. We found a pay phone and Amy rang up our
mother in California, who was still seven hours away from her own
entrance into the new era. Since we had been totally out of touch
with the global news coverage of the Year 2000 celebrations and the
potential Y2K computer problems we asked if there had been any major
computer failures or acts of terrorism around the world. Mom answered
"no", which was a relief, and proceeded to inform us that
there had not been a significant problem reported anywhere. No
nuclear missiles had misfired, no planes had crashed, and people
seemed to be celebrating the Year 2000 peacefully. Mom mentioned that
Boris Yeltsin had just resigned as president of Russia but that
nothing dramatic had come of it and it seemed that all was going
unexpectedly well around the world. She told us that she watched the
Eiffel Tower fireworks display on TV and thought that, so far, they
were the best! I thought that was cool. There Amy and I were standing
in front of the Eiffel Tower in person watching the fireworks display
and there was my mother at the very same moment thousands of miles
away watching the same fireworks display on a television on the other
side of the world. Sometimes I just think this world of ours is amazing!