September 20, 2013
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Monthly Archives: November 2013
September 19, 2013
September 18, 2013
September 17, 2013
September 16, 2013
September 15, 2013
Second Journée du Patrimoine. First thing in the morning, walked to the Jardin du Luxembourg to get into the Sénat.
September 14, 2013
A sneak peak of my Journée du Patrimoine escapades. I basically spent the whole day on line to get inside this building.
The End
On Wednesday, November 11th, my Histoire de Paris class took a field trip to the Palais Royal area. (Side note: this class is quite strange because everyday we have an all-over-the-place lesson in the classroom, then one or two student presentations, and finally we head out on a field trip to somewhere in Paris. And we, the students, don’t know where we’re going until we leave the classroom. Everything happens so on the spot! It is very unstructured, in my eyes. I don’t think professors or classes are ever this improv in America. Now back to Palais Royal.) And at Palais Royal, we went to that courtyard where there are black and white vertically striped columns of different heights. (I can’t remember what this place is actually called.) I was listening to the professor speak when all of the sudden, Cali brought to my attention that there, in the back of the courtyard, was Hatsune Miku of Vocaloid fame.
Hatsune Miku? Vocaloid? Yes. Vocaloid is a Japanese computer-engineered software designed to allow users to make the virtual character sing. Hatsune Miku, one of the characters, is the most famous and has thousands of videos on YouTube. It’s a bit bizarre.
Anyways, we saw her and ran to see her up close. Near her was a group of Japanese men and women. No idea what they were doing there. I quickly snapped a photo of her and right after that, two men came with a large wooden box and started to pack her away. What?! Well, thank god I snuck away from the class for a minute to take a photo. And the coolest thing was that that night, I was going to see her in concert at the Théâtre du Châtelet. COINCIDENCE?! I think not!
Don’t worry. I did not get in trouble. I even brought my professor to see them pack her away. She was very interested and curious in this character and her performance at Châtelet. (For those who don’t know, that’s a high-class theater.)
I’m not a fan of Hatsune Miku or Vocaloid. But I bought tickets to her “opera” because I was familiar with her and was super curious how a virtual character can have an opera, especially in a very fancy theater/opera house, and because the tickets were pretty cheap. Under 15 euros.
The End:
First: the audience for this show was much more eclectic than I expected. There were men and women of all ages, mainly white, with a lot of Asian adults, young adults, and teenagers. There were even preppy teenage female tourists from England! This was completely unexpected. I thought the audience was going to mainly be Asians, otakus, and teenage boys and girls who are obsessed with Japanese pop culture. Paris never ceases to randomly surprise me, but in a totally good way. That Wednesday night was the second out of three showings. It was a full house.
As for the actual concert, it was so strange, I can’t even really describe it. Three huge screens created a trifold board view of one big image and a transparent screen went over the three. (Terrible description, I know.) It was basically like watching a movie, but with 3D illusions. There was a storyline of some sort. I think it went something like Hatsune Miku thinking about her own eventual death. But to be honest, I had no idea what was going on 80% of the time. Especially because there was another character designed to look like Hatsune Miku who, when she talked to Hatsune, I couldn’t tell which one of them was talking. Everything was a bit choppy.
Oh, in regards to the Hatsune look-alike, there was one scene where Hatsune’s ginormous anthropomorphic mouse friend saw the silhouette of the look-alike buying a drink from a vending machine in a desolate vast and dark land and told Hatsune that it doesn’t like the look-alike because she’s trying to look like Hatsune. Then, the figure started approaching them, walking in a very creepy manner with an increasingly grotesque body the closer you got to see her. I kept thinking, “Oh my god. Oh my god. When she reaches the screen, they’re going to show a sudden up-close shot of her face and it’s going to be just like a horror film.” They didn’t do that. But she was still creepy. And then, in a later scene, they did do a quick shot of her face and my god, it was so frightening. Her face and body were so emaciated and her face was basically a large, stretched open oval mouth with a few razor sharp teeth. I KNEW IT.
The music was very odd. Nothing made for a light, relaxing listen. But I definitely liked it. The whole spectacle was so strange that I really enjoyed it. And if it ever comes out on DVD, I will 100% watch it again. It was an experience.
After the show, because I really enjoyed the concert, I bought the “program.” It was a cute little folder containing some info on the production, an interview, and small images of scenes from the show.
Salut!
It’s been a very long time since I last posted. So here’s a brief recap of what I have been up to:
I went on a weekend trip to Brussels and Amsterdam. And ever since then, time moves so quickly. I keep thinking that I only went a week ago, but nope. I will dedicate a whole post to this…eventually. Then, I started an internship at EPITECH. I shall also dedicate a post (and many more) to this specific subject. I finished babysitting (I will elaborate on this, yet again, in another post) for personal reasons. I had tons of tests and presentations, up to the point where I had to really sacrifice sleep. That was not fun. I also finally went grocery shopping after going on a challenge to see how long I could last without buying groceries. It was grueling. Now why would I do that? Because over the months, I racked up random food that I left in the apartment and never got around to eating because I was no longer in the mood to eat. Then, I would keep buying new food that I was craving and that stack of unopened food just kept piling up. And I explored more of Paris, thankfully.
Basically, I just gave you a list of things that I will write about in the future. Well that’s lame. So I will dedicate the rest of this post to random snapshots of my life in Paris in November.
SCHOOL:
School has been relatively doable. Before I started school in Paris, I was quite nervous because all of my classes were going to be in French. THAT MUST BE SO DIFFICULT. But actually, in all honesty, it really has not. The fact that my classes are all in French rarely fazes me. Except in my art history class. I am one hot mess in that class. Otherwise, writing papers and, especially, doing presentations does not present much of a problem to me. I don’t know how. I don’t know why.
Random things I’ve noticed from my art history class, a.k.a. the only class I take with real French students: French students are not that great when it comes to presentations. They are very timid in front of the class. That’s a bit shocking, considering how much emphasis America puts on public speaking. Also, I just took a quiz that I totally bombed because my notes are absolutely horrific in that class. But if I was fluent in French, this quiz was super easy! So easy. Frankly, I am quite ashamed of myself.
ON THE CORNER OF MY STREET:
One plain old Wednesday afternoon, back on November 6th, as I was walking home from school, I saw tons of police officers standing on the sidewalks. Then, I heard loud honking sounds and soon after came a huge hoard of people marching down the street. It was an organized strike by veterinarians.
Then, I saw Christmas lights up. CHRISTMAS LIGHTS UP. Everything is a bit strange here without Thanksgiving in between Halloween and Christmas. But also, Parisians barely, if even, celebrate Halloween. (And naturally, now in late mid-November, Christmas markets are in full-effect.)
And later, when I headed out to go to the doctor, people from the Milka company were standing on the corners of the sidewalks by my apartment handing out free Milka Tuc bars! Naturally, I planned out a way to get one without seeming aggressive and pushy and without missing my bus. It was a success! And delicious~ This all happened in just one afternoon. One very eventful afternoon. What happens on the corner of your street?
And in terms of other foods, I went grocery shopping at U Express and saw some lovely tin cans of baked goods for sale. I gravitated towards that section, even after I bought everything I really needed. I couldn’t resist. They had some Magritte boxes, but the cookies didn’t look too appetizing. But, they also had this very pretty box of regular chocolate chip cookies. The box was what really sold me (and the fact that I haven’t had a regular chocolate chip cookie since I’d arrived). So I got it and wow, when I tried it at home, it blew me away! I really like these cookies. They’re not yummy like homemade fresh-out-of-the-oven cookies, but they are quite amazing as prepackaged crunchy cookies. I researched them a bit online and discovered that it’s a famous brand here in France and that they’re pretty high end. I mean, Galeries Lafayette sells them. Here they are in all their glory, Le Cookies de la Mère Poulard, from Mont Saint-Michel, Normandy.
September 13, 2013
On my way to the fabulous restaurant, Le Vieux Belleville, by crossing through beautiful Parc Belleville.
