New Year's in Lyon

I have a terror of a bad new year's, probably caused by years of having nothing to do in NY, which is pretty pathetic. This year, I had dinner with Javier, Mónica, and Mónica's visiting sister, Ingrid. We then went out to see the town. We had a list of a few places that were free, and we figured that we'd check them out, along with the usual bars. We did not anticipate how crazy the French are. I mean, really fucking crazy. In certain things, like this, France resembles less a Western country, and more India. The year I spent in India, my whole family came for the holidays, including New Year's. Shantha and I talked of going out for New Year's, but were informed that it wasn't advisable -- you had to go to very upscale clubs and spend tons of money to get in, and there were gangs of young men marauding. Instead, we watched Enemy of the State, possibly for the second time. Last night was better than that, but there were definite echoes.

When we went out, Javier and I contented ourselves by badmouthing the French and the relative emptiness of the streets -- fewer people out at 10:30 than you'd find on an average Friday night. Our first stop was a bar that was listed as free, with a "surprise theme." The "surprise theme" turned out to be "costume party," and they were going to open at 11. So we continued on, to Vieux Lyon. It was there that I realized that our jokes were no laughing matter. Our two reliable bars were both closed. Closed for New Year's Eve. One other place that was listed as free seemed to have a 10 euro cover, and so we headed back to the "costume party." On our way, we hit the second disagreeable aspect of French New Year's. Two guys, late teens to my eyes, were going up to women and walking with them, putting their arms around them, going for kisses, etc. Really ugly. At one point they bumped a guy, but their main object was women. Javier and I weren't sure what to do. In this, as in many other things, not speaking French makes things tricky, we agreed.

Arriving at the costume party, we found it not very crowded at all, and with nobody in costume but for the waiters. Which you might expect -- costume party is not really an appropriate "surprise theme," since it requires a modicum of preparation. Our current theory is that they were planning to close for New Year's Eve, like all the other bars, and then, since they are part of a chain of clubs, the other members of which were open for New Year's Eve, had to throw something together in a hurry. But we were grateful -- don't get me wrong. We settled in and debated why French mojitos are so awful. I got nervous, though, as midnight approached and there seemed to be no signs of any kind of unified action. Javier's worst instincts were justified -- at midnight, there was a kind of delayed, half-hearted cheer, sans preparatory countdown or any other such ritual. Truly pathetic.

We finished our drinks and headed out of the bar, to find more exciting places to go, but of course now everything was full. There were also guys out in force harassing women. We finally got a measure of satisfaction when we saw three woman who were surrounded by these guys who would just not let them alone. After watching for a bit, Mónica marched over and grabbed the girls, dragging them away, and we surrounded them, keeping the guys out. Interestingly, what we noticed is that these guys have no interest in fighting with other guys -- just in harassing groups of girls by themselves. In that, they seem to be a bit different from drunk American men, who seem to be as interested in fighting as "loving." An unfortunate racial note is that most of these men seemed, to my untrained eye, to be of Arab descent. I could very easily be wrong about this, though, since it seems to me like there's a racial continuum in France -- I see people who look clearly French European (to me), and people who look clearly Arab, and people at all points in between. Since there can't have been so much intermarriage, I guess this means I'm incompetent.

We ended up on a boat, which was nice enough, dancing in an incredibly packed space to Senegalese musicians. La Passagere came through again.