6 to 12 or 12 to 6?

In France, things have a tendency to close early. Thankfully in Paris, things tend to stay open a little later. The metro, however, is one thing which does eventually stop running. Generally, the metro runs until 12:30 during the week and until 1:30 on the weekends. As a result, Parisiens tend to fall into one of two drinking categories:

1. Often times, people drink during happy hour (5-7 pm, depending on the bar) which falls before dinner. Also in this category, are those who get a drink after dinner, usually from 9pm until the metro closes. As one can imagine, those looking to get lit up have little time to do so in this category. Therefore, these other bar-goers tend to fall into the second category.
2. This category is reserved for the rare few strong enough to endure a night in the bars until 5:30am when the metro reopens. In fact, there are bars which stay open especially for these crazy few.
Of course, the other exchange students and I, being rather crazy, had to give this drinking method a trial run. We all met up at our friend Grace's apartment since she doesn't have a host family, and left there around 12:30 to find a bar. The barmen in some bars, it seems, have a certain frustration with this type of drinker who enters his bar as he is trying to clean up from the day's business. As a result, late-night patrons have a tendency to be shuffled around tables as the barmen attempt to clean. To the French, this is in no way rude because you are in their bar and they feel no obligation to make you feel comfortable--especially not at one in the morning. In fact, it is common practice during the day to make a whole table move if they are hogging-up a large table, even if they are in the middle of eating. So, we went to a couple bars, trying to find something to do until 5:30. We met a few random French guys who tried to “help” us, but mostly just wanted our numbers/wallets. Thankfully, we’re all rather street smart so we lost them quickly. Somehow, we found our way to Notre Dame. It was rather eerie to sit under the gaze of such an immense building during the wee hours of the morning. The church takes on a completely different persona during the night with the absence of all the bumbling tourists. Approaching dawn, we made our way to the metro. In our semi-delirious state we enjoyed jokes about Quasimodo and potato chips from the vending machine. Although I’m not sure I have the stamina for drinking category number two, it was certainly an adventure I’ll never forget.