I've been going to Bastille Day Ball for years and I always have enjoyed it. But this year it was the worst ever! It no longer took place at the charming Pierre Hotel as in the past years. Instead it took place at the Puck Building which does not even come close to The Pierre in its elegance. I think the reason why they had change the venue this year is because the Pierre hotel became more expensive because of the higher demand, since the Plaza hotel where many elegant events used to take place is now closed for renovations.

This was basically a huge party, not a ball. There were what seemed to be like thousands of people crammed into 3 large rooms. And what's the worst is that the passage to go from one room to the other looked like this. We called it "The Passage Of Death", because if there was a fire or other emergency, there would be no way hundreds of people could evacuate by going through it. Being at this spot made me feel that I am at someone's house party.

One of the three rooms was on the 7th floor of the building and there were huge lines of people waiting for the elevator. We ended up taking the stairs. In all three rooms the music was very loud. It was virtually impossible to talk because there was no place to hide from the sound that bounced off the brick walls of the rectangular shaped room.

So after less than an hour of spending time walking through the crowds of people and taking a few quick pictures, Kerrie, Margaret and I went back to hang out in my apartment. I hope next year they will raise the price to something higher than $20 which hopefully will reduce the number of people who come to the ball and also I hope they will move it to a more elegant location than the Puck Building.