“I’M HUNGRY! GIMME A KEBAB!”

An account of my first proper night out in Paris




Last Thursday it was necessary to change my plans for that day, and so instead of going to the Theatre des Bouffes du Nord to see what later turned out to be one of the most phenomenal plays of my life, I ended up hiking my way to the top of the Sacre Coeur, which was an actual treck, so I decided to sit for about an hour in a garden at the bottom. So I’m just sitting there in the sunshine, under a tree, lovely. And three boys come and sit next to me. And they’re all speaking English – Score! Actually they were American, but anyway. There was also this adorable little kid who was secretly Satan – worse than crayon kid and Scary, who no doubt the Stirling people will remember – who attacked us all repeatedly with a water pistol. Ok, maybe he wasn’t that bad. But he definitely took a real kinda disturbing joy in shooting us all in the back of the head; even after I put my hands up and surrendered (“You’re a cold blooded killer!”)

Anyways, turns out they are all from new York, and none of them are fully American; one is American Italian, one is American Brazilian and one is American German. We decide to meet up that night at the Moulin Rouge.



(It should be pointed out right now that the Moulin Rouge is no where near so impressive in reallife. For a start, it’s much smaller, and whereas in the movie it stands totally independent in the middle of a field or whatever, it looks decidedly less striking when mashed between some random Casino and O’Sullivan’s Irish bar…)



Anyway, I arrive typically half an hour late and think that the Yanks have got bored and left. Actually they are on the other side of the road helping two American girls who have been separated from their school and were lucky enough to find some fellow New Yorkers. They know that they’re supposed to meet at a metro station. They just don’t know which one and their teacher is helpfully not answering her phone. All they know is the name of their Hotel, so we have to help them find out where that is and explain to them how to use to Metro to get there. I still have no idea where they ended up, but hopefully our numerous “Taken” jokes did not come to a reality.



After debating whether or not to attempt to crash the Moulin rouge and potentially get our heads kicked in by angry bouncers, we head to O’Sullivans where I have my first long island ice tea. Good Stuff! The guys are considerably more wasted than me having already drunk a bottle of wine, and are perfectly happy to buy all my drinks. At 11 O’clock we decide to go and look for a free club which is in my guide book called the Moloko.



We find that street where the Moloko should be. We walk up it. We walk down it. We go into other pubs. I drag the guys up and down this street 3 times, convinced that it has to be there.

It turns out that the reason my guidebook was reduced in price is because it’s about 5 years out of date, and the Moloko has now been turned into a tanning salon.



We decide to head back to the Bastille area, where there should be some good pubs and clubs, but on the train meet some celebrating football fans (I forget which country) and decide, quite rightly, to “Follow the man with the Antlers!”



As we get off the train, into the ever famous Pigalle area, my stalker from the Monday night is standing having a cigarette. I point him out to the other three, then stare straight ahead as they all indiscreetly spin round to take a closer look. “Ooooh, you’re getting glares”



We are nearly at the club when a man stops us.



“Where are you from?”

“Scotland”

“Scotland? Really? Excellent! And what is your religion?”

“….what?”

“Your religion. What is it?”

(Vartan (the Brazilian): “How did we get on to that?”)

“Er, I don’t have one?”

(Gasps) “Don’t have one?! What about th rest of you?”

(Backing away slowly)

“Don’t have one”

“Don’t have one”

“Muslim”.

Me: “…Seriously?”

Dennis (German): “Yep”



So we left Dennis arguing with the Christians and continued following the man with the antlers. Cold, I know, but he caught up with us eventually.



The club was fairly awesome, I got jumped on by quite a lot of people and the drinks were well cheap. We all left at different times, first to go was Dennis.



The next time I saw Dennis shortly before the boys left the next day his nose was still covered in dried blood.

Basically, having arrived back outside his hostel at two in the morning he’d got into a discussion with a drunken French man.

The discussion became an argument.

The argument ends with Dennis shouting (in French) “GO FUCK YOUR MOTHER”.

Dennis doesn’t really remember what happened after that, except that now his nose hurts A LOT. On the other hand, so does his fist so he figured he must have got the other guy pretty well too.

Dennis decided at this was a pretty good time for a kebab, and so made his way to the nearest late night kebab shop.



“I’d like a kebab please”

“What happened to your face?”

“It’s nothing. I want a kebab”

“But your face…it’s covered in blood”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, but I just want a kebab”

“Listen, should I maybe call the pol-“

“I’M HUNGRY! GIMME A KEBAB!”



Dennis not only got his kebab, but the guy gave him it for free on account of his nose. Nice man, that.



Carlos (the Italian one, who incidentally told me that Napoleon was in fact Italian (technically) so up yours Mathieu Chavey :P ) left the club at about two, and promptly fell asleep in a bush.



Vartan and I left at 3, with Vartan offering to walk me back to my hostel. Of course, we ended up hopelessly lost next to this beautiful bridge over a canal. We asked a drunk old French guy for direction, which was fine until he was Vartan’s face with wine.



“What’s that on your uhhh….you…” (points to face)

“My what? Ooh right yeah. That’s paint”

(Someone painted all over his chin and forehead in the club)

(To me, in French) “Tell him I’m going to wash his face with the wine”

(In French) “Ok” (In English) “He’s gonna use the wine to—“

(Guy attacks V’s face with a wine soaked cloth)

V: “…I feel kinda violated....if I pass out suddenly, run”



Happily the wine was wine and not chloroform. I eventually did make it back to my hostel at 6 in the morning and was absolutely dead for the rest of the day.