Ponts Et Galas

Yesterday was chaos.
So, I was running all around to get to things on time. Class happened. Kendra and I went to Angelina to drink hot chocolate, excessively, and to eat salads like somewhat decently good but not really girls. Ran to Rimi's to sew up my dress. Then I ran late to my dîner de conference with my French class.
We met at Pont des Arts. This bridge is where loads of people go to eat and drink with friends. It's basically a social bridge. Hard to explain. It's always packed, and usually full with very drunk teenagers and not-as-drunk older adults.
Anyways! Everyone (except me) brought something to munch on. We feasted on a lot of interesting concotions. Our teacher brought some red wine from his hometown, Tours (which we bonded over). It was a really nice 2 hours on the bridge, drinking wine, talking in French, bonding with my French class not in the classroom. Really cool kids. I talked mostly to my teacher (who looks 30 but is 41...which is why I need to move to France), a girl from Buenos Aires, and a guy from Slovakia. Lots of laughs. We talked a lot. Mixed up the languages a bit; Spanish, English, Polish, French, some others...I really really had a nice time with them, casually lounging on the bridge...until it started to pour rain.
So, I ran back to Rimi's apartment to get ready for the Gala. The Gala is basically Sciences Po's strong (yet not quite satisfying) attempt at making an American prom. Huge differences: It was an open alcohol bar, 2 club levels, an outside, and HUNDREDS OF DRUNK FRENCH KIDS! But more on that later...
It took Rimi and I about 2 hours to get me prepared for the Gala. Makeup, hair, jewelry...it was all a hot mess. We laughed a lot, and poor girl got really confused when she was trying to apply eye shadow on me....because I don't have Asian eyes.
I got to the Institute Mondial Arabe for the Gala an hour into it. The building is magnifiscent, that's for sure. The line, though, was 30 minutes long. I was all alone. Made friends with a nice foreign girl. We hit it off and joked about what we expected.
Finally got in, and took another 30 minutes to fail at getting a free drink. Too many drunk kids were more aggressive than me. Oh well.
I saw José walking around in uniform, so I slid over to bug him. He was not in a very happy mood, telling me that he didn't know why he came, that he didn't know anyone, and yet he had so many girls to dance with.
Oh, poor baby. No pity.
So we hung out for about 30 minutes or so. We went up to the beautiful balcony to talk a bit, but he was constantly distracted by other people and started talking to his other friends he found on the way. I ended up waiting for him to stop talking to others than talking to him myself. By the end, he implied that he was going to leave and that I wouldn't see him until next semester when he does exchange at Westpoint. Thinking about how big of a jerk move it was, I let him walk off with a group of other kids, and I was officially not enjoying the formal.
And my other friends there were either running and managing the night (aka too busy to have fun) or with a bigger group of friends I didn't know at all.
Luckily, I found Annelise the Australian girl I've known since the beginning. We we both disappointed in the night, but then concluded to go have fun downstairs in the club area anyways, despite it all. We found some of the other international kids she's close with (who were all moderately to extremely inebriated), and we ended up enjoying ourselves dancing and goofing off on the dance floor for about an hour. I even met up with the girl from the line. She decided we were best friends or something...
Finally, however, I concluded to leave at last. But the girl from the line insisted on going up to the balcony with me anyways. Alright, drunk girl, I'll humor you. So we go up, and I look around, and I find Joris! My favorite! The one working the night! So I went over to him, and he absolutely made my night. He was excited to see me, was the first person to tell me I looked nice ("Looking cute!" is what he said, and that I looked like Carrie from "Sex In The City" --a New York woman -- to be honest) and talked with me. And he looked dashing! He was taking time to talk to me, and I felt so cool. He was cutting convos short with other people to talk to me. I told him that I was going home then, and so he decided to escort me downstairs. He ended up walking me outside (it helped that he wanted to smoke) and we talked for about an hour outside
Saw José leave with some random girl, which he tried to skirt away from saying bye to me again. Oh, not cool.
I went home and fell asleep around 4h30, exhausted, and slept through my class.
Anyways, thank goodness for Joris. He made my night officially.