2006 is dead, long live 2007! (31/12/06-01/01/2007)

We had a few choices for New Year’s but thanks to visa problems we were left with but one: the big city just next door: Marseille.

Mayan had heard about an all-night ice skating rink (a patinoire) and fireworks at the Vieux Port, and we’d together googled the best all-night events in Marseille. We had our plan, our party clothes, and our one-way bus tickets and got ready to double-check that the sun would still rise in 2007.

We made straight for the patinoire, which we found rather elusive, so we sat ourselves down to rethink our strategy over a cocktail and met our first rude French waiter. It was like a postcard moment. So satisfied that we’d already begun a thoroughly French NYE, we went in search of the patinoire. For some reason it was closed this year, so we installed ourselves in a bar with a good view of the fireworks display with a big bottle of champagne. We waited for the France-famous fireworks display with a group of friends we met, putting back another bottle of champagne and starting on the martinis. We were reminded to count down the year by all the beeping cars and boats, and turned our anxious little faces skyward…and saw nothing but stars. It seems the firework display was cancelled this year too.

But never mind, we continued to revel the Reveillon with our new friends until they disappeared a few hours later, and we headed off to the bohemian quarter for a bit of after-hours New Year cheer. But the widely-lauded student, reggae and party centre was totally deserted, empty except for a couple of emptying nightclubs and a few stray cats. This is the second time that we’ve come here of an evening to find it party-less, and I’m beginning to wonder whether it’s not all it’s said to be, or whether we’ve just thoughtlessly come on the same days as the French Anarchist Party meetings.

So, back at the Vieux Port, we had a couple of coffees and jumped on the early ferry to the Island of Frioul (our Rottnest substitute). We climbed the rocky paths, startling a few albatrosses, and braved the morning wind to watch the dawn of 2007.

We eventually arrived back in Aix at 10 in the morning, and went roughly straight to bed (we couldn’t really go straight anywhere, we were pretty sleepy), satisfied that yes, 2007 had come and yes, French champagne is an excellent way to begin another bonne année.