One of my objectives during the two weeks in Paris was to experience the night life in this city. As a result I went to four different nightclubs. The first one I visited was on Saturday, January 13th and it was called Les Quatres Vents. It is situated in the Quartier Latin. As most clubs in Paris, it opened at 11:30 PM and went on until dawn. The music was very diverse. It went from Caribbean music such as Zouk and Reggae to Old School Hip Hop, R&B, French Rap, Salsa and African music such as Coupé Decalé. This wide variety of music is much different from what I have experienced in Boston, New York City and even Montreal nightclubs where the music is much more uniform. One additional difference I had noticed was that the people in the club danced in a much different manner. They dance a lot by themselves (although depending on the music they may partner up). As a result the average club goers in Paris were actually good dancers with a lot of nice moves (in my opinion).
The second nightclub I went to was the Mambo Club; where again the music was pretty varied. I went to that club on Wednesday, January 16. The cover was 18 Euros, which I believe is close to the average cost of nightclubs in Paris that charge for entrance. The nightclub unfortunately was empty. My 18 Euros were wasted. With a bit more thought it became logical to me why the nightclub was empty. There are many nightclubs in Paris and they are all relatively small. As a result, one needs to know exactly where to go on a particular night to avoid walking into an empty nightclub. Furthermore, several of the nightclubs I came across were actually closed during most of the week but opened during the weekend; which is much different from the average nightclub in Boston that opens every day and is perhaps indicative of a certain cultural preference.
The third nightclub I visited was on Friday, January 18. It was the Club Zed. We were four from JSF to have gone to the nightclub that night. Just as it was for Quatre Vents, the music was pretty varied. The average age of the people in the nightclub (without including us from JSF) seemed to be about thirty-six. I do not believe it was solely because this particular nightclub was popular among people of that age. Indeed at Quatre Vents there was a fair number of people of a certain age as well. It felt natural for them to be at the nightclub and they had as much fun as anyone else (without the awkwardness that would have been felt in a night nightclub in Boston). This to me was more evidence of the “Joie de vivre” of Parisians.
The last nightclub I visited along with several JSF members, Ludovic (from Paris) and Quentin (from Lyon) was O’Sullivan; which we went to on the last on the last day of the JSF trip (Saturday, January 19). It was located on Bonne Nouvelle Boulevard. This nightclub confirmed once more my beliefs about nightclubs in Paris. The music was indeed varied and the dancing was great. We had a lot of fun on this last evening of our stay in Paris. (-Serginio)