Weekend in Versailles/Paris

Just spent my first weekend here in Versailles, and it was fun based on the people I spent the weekend with, but as far as finding stuff to do, it was unfortunately, a bit disappointing. Our prospects for the weekend looked good because there was an event in Paris that went on this past Saturday called La Nuit Blanche, which translates to "a sleepless night." Sounds like a huge all-night party, right? Sadly, Nuit Blanche was not at all what we thought it would be. The event consisted of a bunch of different independent films being played or certain scenes for films being filmed. We found a booklet full of the different activities going on that night, and there were a lot of different films and filmmakers all over different parts of Paris, so we went to Gare de Lyon where an Indian film was being filmed with Bollywood dancers. So we get there and the film space is right outside the station and it's packed. We get up as close as we can to see the Indian dancers, and we were excited to see them dance and just admire their beautiful costumes. So eventually, some music would start playing and the women on the "stage" would start dancing, but then the music would cut off after 30 seconds. We thought they were just having technical difficulties, so we waited until they fixed the problem. After waiting a good 15 minutes or more, the same music would start again, the women would dance, and then it'd suddenly stop in the same spot it did last time. It was really frustrating. We waited there for another 30 minutes or so hoping that we'd eventually see full performance, but it never happened. They played the music two more times (and we had to wait at least 15 minutes or more between the two times that they played this music) so by the time the music played and cut off for the fourth time, we got fed up and left. It was too crowded there and we weren't really getting to see anything. The dancers and director and crew of the film would've been there all night because the activities of Nuit Blanche lasted from 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM, but we couldn't stay out late because the last train that would take us back to Versailles would leave at 11:55 that night--which I thought was annoying because if people are supposed to stay up all night for Nuit Blanche, shouldn't the trains have run all night? We had also heard that all the museums were supposed to be open all night and be free, so we all decided we wanted to go to the Louvre again that night. But when we got there, it was closed. WTF? By this time, we had to head back to the train station to get back to Versailles, but we were OK with it because the events of Nuit Blanche were not turning out to be as exciting as we had thought. I went out with Roz, Katie, Monika, and Michele, and Roz even started asking people where the party was that night, but there was no such party for Nuit Blanche. Maybe we just went to the wrong places, but it just wasn't that exciting all in all, and it was disappointing that we couldn't get into the Louvre that night. By the time we got back to Versailles, we were all pretty tired. We hung out a little bit, but there wasn't a whole lot to do and a lot of things were closed, so we ended up calling it a night at like one in the morning.
Despite the fact that Nuit Blanche did not go as planned, we were excited for Sunday because we were told that on the first Sunday of every month, the museums in Paris are free. So since we couldn't get into the Louvre last night, we took the train to Paris again to get in this time, and for free. So we get in the Louvre and get through the security. We find maps of the place, decide what we want to see, and start heading off in the direction we need to go. And just as we're about to enter a section of the building, we are told the Louvre is closed. Again, WTF? That was just irritating because we took a lot of time to get there and then for nothing. I'm annoyed we had to go through security too before they'd tell us we couldn't go in the building. So we walked around Paris for about an hour since we were there, and then had to go back to Versailles to be back home in time for dinner. Thankfully, dinner at my house was fun that night because I got to meet the older sister and brother. It was really nice because the entire Malglaive family was there (7 people) and then me, and it was fun because we were all crowded around this little table in our small dining room and it was so cramped, but it was fun because everyone was talking all at once and it was fun to just sit there and listen to them talk and laugh. The food was good too!
So all in all, not the best weekend I've had here, but despite the disappointments and setbacks, I still had a lot of fun hanging out with Roz, Katie, Michele, and Monika. And the family dinner was a perk to the weekend. Next weekend should be much better--the five of us girls who hung out this weekend will go to Grenoble with Deem (he took the other five people in our group to the country in Brittany this past weekend--we all had a choice of whether we wanted to do a country or city trip, so 5 of us chose the country trip and the other 5 the city trip). So this next weekend is our weekend to travel and eat well, so I'm looking forward to that. A bientot!