After work I came home and rested a bit, then did my hair, make-up, and put on the cocktail dress I wore for my wedding. The party started officially at 7pm, with dinner at 8:30, and the "ball" (read: club dancing) starting at 10:30. I got to the Mediathèque where the event was taking place at about 7:30 and there was a small crowd already.
Students had to pay 25€ to attend the dance and 40€ to attend the dinner and dance, but the personnel had a reduced ticket at 15€. A number of professors were present as well as some staff, but I ended up being the only Masters program secretary.
Upon arriving, they had roped a path directly to the coat check, which was good thinking since everyone had a coat to leave. Later I saw a girl asking for her purse she had checked because she wanted to change shoes (flat shoes left in her bag). After leaving your coat, you were greeted by a hostess before being able to enter the cocktail room. The hostess was placing people at tables, which was actually just checking off how many people were sent to each table so they knew where seats were still left. I didn't know how the whole system worked so when she asked me where who I wanted to sit with I said other personnel.
"Well, I think there are some professors at this table..."
Little did I know that the Directrice of the school would end up joining the table as well!
After the table reservation, guests were let into the first room/cocktail space where everyone had one drink of punch or kir offered. Two musicians played on the guitar and keyboard, and there were appetizers out on some long tables along the sides of the room as well as placed on the little bistro tables places in the center of the room.
At 8:30 everyone was invited to find their table in the adjoining room. You would have thought they said the last person seated wasn't served by how fast everyone headed for the tables! Usually the French are really slow to go and sit down, but this was rather quick.
The meal was actually really good, with a soup, entrée, and plat with wine at the table.
The student group who organized the party had some "animations" during the meal, which included a short speech by the Directrice, a word from the president of the club, and a short quiz of 4 questions about the university and 4 questions about movies (the theme of the night was the Cannes film festival). The table with the most winning answers got 2 bottles of Champagne. My table didn't win, but then again we realized it would have seem rather unfair if the Directrice won since she kind of had the upper hand on the questions about the university.
At the end of the meal we were told dessert would be served back in the first room because they would clear the tables to make way for the dancing. I grabbed one of the plastic Oscars on the table for decoration to put on my office after break.
The desserts were organized pretty much like the cocktail: one flute of champagne per person and mini desserts available on long tables.
While we were having dessert I saw that more and more students were arriving for the dancing part of the night. The music they started playing was standard club fair, and they had a kind of bar set up at the back of the room. To buy drinks you used tickets; 8 tickets were given with your entrance and more could be purchased by the coat check. I believe Champagne was 3 tickets and sangria 4, although I didn't look too closely. Some of my colleagues said the Champagne they were selling wasn't as good as the Champagne served during dessert, so I didn't take anything.
By this point it was almost midnight, and between my tired feet, the mediocre music, and having worked 8 hours before coming to the party I decided to call it quits. I gave my tickets to a student I knew and took the metro home with the plastic Oscar sticking out of my purse.
I'm glad I went to the event since it was nice, not too expensive, and I got to socialize with colleagues. With the American student in the program (who I actually knew before I started my job) we chatted about whether or not the Gala could be compared to an American style High School dance. In certain respects yes because it was the one big fancy event of the year that a large percentage of the students came to. But even though it was announced as "formal", there were only about 5 students in long gowns and I only saw one professor in a tuxedo (everyone was calling him James Bond because he's rather handsome). At high school dances there isn't this idea of faculty and staff participating either.
For me, it was a nice way to start a one week vacation.
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