Neighbours’ party
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Being in charge of writing a paper on the « Neighbours’ party » for La Parisienne blog, I took my mission very seriously, up to the point to organise it. Indeed, this event had not taken place the previous years in my building.
First step: writing a poster with a registration list for those who wanted to take part into it, suggesting to the neighbours to meet in the courtyard around 8PM on Tuesday May 27th. I wrote a fake first name on the first line, Jean-Paul, because often people don’t dare registering their name first.
Two days later, I noticed that six or seven people wrote their names down; this was fine if we were a small group, it would make them fill like joining us on the Day D.
But the day before the party, I noticed another poster proposing to meet around 8:30PM in the garden on the ground floor’s neighbours. How was it possible, were they planning a “counter neighbours’ party”?
The day of the party, just before 8PM I doubted about the success of the celebration, it was cold and raining; and on top of that the second poster might have disordered the time of the meeting and the general organisation!
But as I went out towards the courtyard I immediately bumped into the neighbours, the authors of the second poster, who were inviting us to their place as it was raining outside. Some more neighbours were in the hall as well; we ere introducing ourselves as people were gathering together. Our hosts had prepared pizzas, others had brought Portuguese dishes and the buffet dinner started in a very pleasant atmosphere. There was plenty of food, I revealed that Jean-Paul would not help to serve the plates.
Everyone was glad to finally take the time to talk for real rather than throughing the usual « hello » when we were meeting from time to time in the hall; besides as it was a party when no one knew each other at first, it removed the usual talk of friends who had been knowing each other for years.
Besides, this was the opportunity to chat with older people and people from different social backgrounds; it was indeed pretty unusual that a granny walked in during a party!
We could hear as well about the neighbourhood history, celebrities who lived around or gossips about weird neighbours. This was also a good time to swap the nice spots to go out and to eat out in area. We also all complained a bite about the high prices of the rents because this was the common point between us.
One o’clock in the morning, we finally figured out that the party was over and that everybody was working the next day. Fortunately, we didn’t have a lot to walk to get home. We were all suggesting not to wait for next year’s neighbours’ party to get together again. Meeting friends in Paris from a neighbourhood to another always requires time, so why not enjoying company around home?
Author: Guillaume de Pauw
Translation: Johara Boukabous