House Party French Style

"la fête:" party
"bises:" kisses (as in the cheek to cheek kisses you give upon greeting)
"bisous:" kisses that are more as we American's consider kisses to be, such as for a boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife, etc.  

So our apartment is situated behind our landlords' house, so we have gotten to know them and their family pretty well over the last 9 months.  We were invited to come to their daughter, Lucy's 20th birthday party last night.  I was not sure what to expect, but attended the "flower power" themed bash.  They had a pretty nice setup in this really big room in the house, decorated with candles and Christmas lights all about, plus a couple of disco balls-a-spinning.  The beginning of the night started out with Yves, Lucy's dad spinning old records including the Doors, the Rolling Stones, some twist & shout among others.  Brigitte (Lucy's mom) warmed up the dance floor...very cute couple, although at 20 I probably would have been horrified to have my parents dance at my birthday party!  Haha I think Lucy was happy to have them there, however.

Even after 9 months, the whole kissing greeting still confounds me.  So, I can totally understand friends greeting each other, such as when meeting for a coffee, seeing each other at school, family greetings, etc.  It becomes weird to me at places such as the office, and in this party situation.  So I arrived before most of the other people did (Lucy's friends), so every time someone arrived to the party, they are obliged to make a tour of the room greeting everyone with kisses or handshakes (guy to guy) even if you've never met this person before.  Insider's tip, this is how it works: usually you go to their left side of the face (so your right cheek) first, make a big MUAH kiss smack sound and then as you move to the next side before the second smacking sound, you say your name. Let's review it step by step: lean in (make sure to turn your head enough so has to not accidentally have a lip to lip kiss-whoa that'd be awkward) touch your right cheek to their right cheek making the obligatory smacking sound (intensity sound depends on personal preference, but normally the louder the better), and as you turn to the other side, say name ("Michelle" for me), but it is not necessary to say "my name is" or "i'm," just the name is sufficient, and then repeat cheek touch lip smack sound on other side.  Then move on to the next person.  You may not talk to this person for the rest of the night, or even ever again, but you have indeed exchanged bises. 

This is the typical process, of course you occasionally get different variations depending on the person, region, etc:

• Not just 2, but 3 or 4 kisses.  Anything beyond 2 just becomes a sort of bobbing dance. A tech intern, who works at our production facility in Aurillac, came into the office the other day and I gave him the bises, and pulled away as normal after 2, leaving him literally hanging for number 3.  Whoops, I felt really bad!  Generally speaking, anywhere south of Clermont-Ferrand does more than 2. 
• Then you have the big-bise giving studs who breeze past cheek to cheek bises and go in for the full on lips to cheek kiss.  I call this "Big Bisous"
• Sometimes with the kisses you just lean in, no touching besides cheeks, sometimes maybe an hand on the shoulder, and then there are those who like to go in for the full double shoulder grab, where there is no escaping or turning back. 

Anyway, back at the party after I had exchanged bises with about 20 different people,  we had some cocktails and party snacks provided by Brigitte.  At about 11pm, Yves got booted from his record disc jockeying and on came on the iTunes powered techno club beats to really get the party started.   I did not really know anyone at the party except Lucy (the birthday girl) and Vincent (landlord's son, 25), so it took a few drinks to really get me warmed up, but afterward was able to make friends on and off the dance floor.  Lights were flashing and music bumping until about 3:30am, while normal people probably would already be in bed, but we decided to take the party to a club in Clermont called L'Atelier, which is open until 5am.  Further dancing ensued, and to my shock, the club let a couple of chiseled guys hop up on the bar and dance, à la Chippendales while they took their shirts off.  These guys sure thought they were hot stuff...it was funny to see because it is something that would just NEVER happen in a regular bar/club in the States. 

Hip hop hooray that was quite a Saturday night.