Why I love Fridays part 1

So, on Friday, I did what I'd been dying to do since Nuit Blanche. I went and saw the original drawings from Studio Ghibli. I took a new metro line and went further across Paris then I ever had. I was nervous at first, since it was just me, but the metro line I went on was actually really cool because it was above ground, unlike the other metros. I got all tingly as sped at 4 story building level. It was very cool.

Technically I took this photo when I was headed out, but this is what I saw when I came in.

This was the view from the end the platform once I arrived. I actually checked my camera to make sure there was no filter on the photo once I took it since I don't use filters. Nope. 100% reality. I was ok with that. After that, I found my way to the museum where the exhibit was located. It wasn't hard to find, though since it wasn't the only art related thing in the vicinity, I did have to narrow things down though. 

The view though, was gorgeous. It was absolutely perfect day. 

Still, I was nearly bouncing in excitement, so I quickly went inside and bought a ticket. I had trouble with the door both on the way in and on the way out though, so the security guard was laughing at me. I didn't blame him. I was laughing too. And the words push were written in french on the door too. I am so smart with these every day things. . . .

Still, thrilled is an understatement when I got my ticket. It was so gorgeous too. 

I felt a little like Charlie Bucket and his golden ticket. I tried to contain my glee as I walked past the security guard. I'm pretty sure I failed, because he was grinning at me.

Once inside the exhibit, I found myself in a dark room with lots of information -- both in English and in French -- about the animation process and scans of some of the Studio Ghibli drawings. There was also information on the materials the artists used and a display case. 

I have posted the scans of the drawings here, because where the real drawings were framed, no photos were allowed, for fear of damaging the drawings. I totally stand by that, so the only photos I took inside the exhibit were the things that would not be damaged by camera exposure. Here are the scans of the drawings: 

 The next room had one drawing framed for each of the Studio Ghibli movies, starting from Nausicaa, Valley of the Wind, and Castle in the Sky and going to the Wind Rises and another one that I cannot recall the title of. My favorite were the drawings of Castle in the Sky and Nausicaa Valley of the Wind, because they seemed to capture the single most important moment and make it come along. But at the same time, the drawings were rough, raw, and full of emotion. Not to sound big headed or anything, but they reminded me of my own drawings. Where I will be at in a few years if I study hard enough. After these first drawings, of course, the drawings became anything I can ever aspire too, but being able to see myself in those first few drawings was very inspiring. I even made a list of ways I can improve my work entitled: What Miyazaki has that I don't. For your amusement, I have posted it in part here:
Early Drawings: 
Dynamic Composition
Clean Lines
FLOW
Detail
Decent Backgrounds
He uses a little blue and shading to make points. Sometimes in yellow or red. Sometimes a rainbow.
Tells a story.
Caught in one moment.

Castle in the Sky
Cleaner, More precise.
Stronger use of color.
Hands are amazing.
Best drawings have elegant, clean lines and true focus, purpose.
Too many lines looks busy overwhelming to the eye.

Drawing Asides: 

How the eye moved was very important in the drawing.
There was a main point, followed by a secondary and then a third point.
First object is set off with space. Eye is drawn to white spaces or the un-symmetrical. It is drawn to what is unusual. If the drawing is very complex, it is drawn to the simple and vice versa.  

Princess Monokoke

Drawings are sharper, more dynamic, with harder lines. Stronger use of black and orange.
Drawings reflect the war-like, hostile nature of the film.

My Neighbor Toroto

More color (green and blue) used. More pen. Drawings displayed suggested they were from a later stage.


What I learned: Characters and backgrounds are often drawn separately. There was a huge background displayed for Kiki's Delivery Service.

When I first got into the exhibit, I thought there was only one or two rooms. It turned out, however that there was a room for nearly ever movie. In Toroto, there was a giant shadow of Toroto on the wall! It was really cool.
After the Monokoke room though, (complete with clips from the movie) there was the coolest thing in the entire exhibit.
The Spirited Away Exhibit. First there was soft music. And then . . .

This

It was full sized and walking towards this thing, (also a scan, so I could photograph it) was amazing. It was so magical. I felt like I walking towards another world, which was, I imagine, the point. 

when you turned the corner, there was a full room. And floor to ceiling was crammed with Spirited Away drawings. There was also a screen with an interview with Miyazaki on it. Very cool. But the coolest part when when I turned the next corner and ran into this:

Yup. Life-sized recreation of the scene from the film. With the mirrors added it felt like it went on forever.
Here's a close up of the detail of the vase:

I was happily impressed. After this, I went into the Howl's Moving Castle room. I wasn't as impressed, though the drawings were amazing, and moved on. It was a little sad, since Howl's Moving Castle is easily my favorite of the Studio Ghibli films. Still, they'd still impressed me out of my mind in the exhibit in general and blown away my highest expectations. After that, I was getting tired, having been there 2 hours and I began to skim a little, particularly since I wasn't as familiar with a lot of the newer works. I was most impressed with the drawings from Ponyo -- full color and huge -- and the drawings from The Secret World of Arrietty, which were pure magic. I haven't seen either film though, so it fell a little flat. I looked around the rest of the drawings, which were still really amazing, and headed out. Before I did though, I sat for this photo:

It was really unique and fun. I sat on a bench covered in green screen and the computer did the rest. It was a great way to end an amazing exhibit and an incredible experience.

And that was my visit to the Studio Ghibli Exhibit. But that wasn't the end of my day, not by a long shot. Stay tuned for why I love Fridays, part 2.

Tour of the Parisian Sewers

The obsession of going to the Parisian sewers started when I was on a plane back to California from Roanoke. There was actually an interesting article on this tour someone had taken of these sewers, in Paris, and were raving about it. I was hooked. As a person, I admit, it's sort of a meh thing. But as a writer? The possibilities are endless and exciting. Besides, it promised to reference Victor Hugo, who while I've never read his work, I'm always interested in literary history.
So, I went. It was actually possible to get there off my metro, so I started out pretty late. The metro ride was brief, less than 20 minutes. Walking the streets to get there took 30-40 minutes. Why? Well, it seems my mother and I have the same sense of direction. That is to say, none (sorry mom. But your direction sense still rocks over mine!). I walked up and down the same street 3 times, trying to figure out the right direction. I found it, eventually, just when I was about to give up. Still, there are worse things in life then walking by the Seine on a beautiful day.

Anyways, I eventually got to the ticket office and managed to mispronounce ticket badly, but the lady knew what I meant and sent me on the right way.

Goodbye daylight!

Being in the sewers was actually really creepy. When I first got there, there was absolutely no one around and the place seemed completely abandoned. I wasn't sure if I was in a forbidden area and I had no idea of where I was allowed to go. Besides this, I could see a man uniform watching me from some distance away. I played it safe by looking at the posters (in french) on the water cycle, then risked going to what was labeled as two. The man didn't stop me, so I figured it was fine. I walked over to where the man was. It seemed he was by some sort of cool display. I smiled at him nervously. He did not return the smile. I decided to take a closer look at the exhibit he was watching.

 . . . and then I realized, he wasn't just watching the exhibit, he was part of it!

That's my man! You could say he's a dummy at times. 

I felt very stupid, particularly when I realized there were manikins all over the place! Particularly after I had thought this guy was human for so long, they creeped me out!

Here's what the first room looked like:

It was actually dark enough that I used flash for every single photo, save this one. Once I traveled past this room, it became very maze like, dark and foreboding. I freaked out for a bit, but then realized I had a map. Heh. I'm so smart.

I set out in the direction that seemed most likely.

I ran into all kinds of interesting things:

 There were many old machines on display that are used for . . . sewer things. Like this: 

I was really surprised though, to find that the tour included parts of the actual sewer. There was the sound of rushing water and plenty of grates with water rushing under them, plus, at one point, there was a strong smell of feces. So that was nice. Still though, the atmosphere was certainly something out of a story. 

The closer I got to the smell, the stronger the sound of water got. I crossed over a large grate and into the main part of the museum, the part where they had all the artifacts and the history of the sewers over this huge water grate. The sound of the water was actually so loud it gave me a throbbing headache. I actually had to revisit this room to see it all and I still don't remember what I read!

In  case you don't believe me, here is what the water sounded like! It was kind of incredible. 

I got all kinds of flashes of one of favorite dystopia movies, city of ember! 

While I've only seen it once, I liked it a lot. 

Here were some of the stranger things in the room:

In the center of the room, on which everything was placed on, was this grate. The stuff under the grate is white water. 

Bust of important guy. Did I think to jot down his name? Nope!

Yes, there were a bunch of swords. 

Boots. 

After I left this room there was an abrupt drop in temperature. It had been lukewarm in the other rooms, now it was icy. I put on my jacket and moved forward. I was still completely isolated.

On the next bend I ran into this: 

Which I thought was pretty cool. I love literary anything, as I mentioned and it was cool to learn about the real books instead of that . . . um . . . interesting . . . movie. 

The next corner had move surprises. 

There were more manikins and old machines here too. There was a passage and then a large chamber. In the chamber, there were these oddities. 

Which are supposed to be used for cleaning waste. 

This was more or less the end of the tour, so I headed back along in a narrow space between a gate blocking the sewers and the path. 

Before I ended though, I went back through. I discovered two new things: A passage and a decent shot of one of the rooms I went through. 

After that, I headed up the surface again, into my sweet, sweet air.

Evening in the life/French Dinner

7:30 -- nearly on the dot -- my mother calls "Emery, dinner is ready,"and I walked to the table.
French dinner is a bigger affair than American dinner, but French breakfast is much less grand than American breakfast, so I guess it evens out.

In my host family (in french, the term is famille accueille, which sounds like actual, but means welcoming family, I think), at least. The table is always set really beautifully. I know in some families, dinner can last as long as 3 hours, but in mine, it usually lasts 30 minutes. An hour if my host mother is chatty. I have found that they (and other host families I know of) eat very fast. I always feel terrible for making them wait, but I refuse to not taste my food.

Anyways, in essence, the table always looks like how my mother sets her table. Cloth napkins, a table cloth, nice glasses and plates. There are only 3 major differences. There is only water at the dinner table, and my hosts prefer sparkling so there are their two bottles of sparkling water. The second difference is my own water, which is what the french class "l'eau plat," which loosely translate to flat water, and the ceramic picture it is in. The last, and most distinctive thing, is the basket of bread on the table, with the baguette. This is a staple of the french dinner. One gets a slice of bread with dinner, always.
There are two important table manners that the French observe. #1 Bread goes on the table, NOT on your plate. It goes right to upper left of the plate. You can use the bread to get things onto your fork and it is polite to break off a bit and then put it in your mouth.
#2 Hands go on the table. In my host family, elbows are acceptable, but I don't know if this is a rule in France in general or not. Regardless, your hands and forearms go on the table. Under is considered very rude, like you are hiding something. Which makes a good deal of sense to me.

The french have a four course meal every night. Dinner will start with a light appetizer. A bit of carrots with a vinaigrette is what my host mother likes to make best. It tasted very strange to me at first, very strong, but now I really like it. Other options are tomato and cucumber salad, chopped cabbage with a similar vinaigrette. Sometimes, there is a light lecture salad with another kind of vinaigrette. The salad is always AMAZING. It is the best salad I have ever had. My host mother says that the secret is in the vinaigrette, that they don't make the same vinaigrette in America as they do in France. I suspect she's being modest, but that there is some truth in it.
If there is an appetizer, AND a salad, the salad is eaten traditional after the main course, but my host mother often informs me I can eat it after or with. She's used to americans by now though, her and my host father have had 36 OTHER host students, is the number she gave me.

After the appetizer is the main meal. If my host mother is tired, she will make something like a Croque-monsieur, which, in her version is a lot like a grilled cheese. If she's feeling fancy, stuff starts getting exotic with beets or couscous. I know for a fact she loves fish, but because she knows I hate it, there is always non fish meat at dinner (I assume she enjoys it on the weekend, when they don't cook meals for me.). I've had lamb, I've had chicken, and I've had pork and beef. Usually there's potatoes (Pomme de Terre), rice, or something else with it. It's always really nice tasting. She's a good cook.

After the main meal, the french serve the cheese. Usually there is 2-3 cheeses to choose from. My favorite by far is the Guerre cheese, which is Swiss. But the french make it MUCH better. I can tolerate Bree and middle-aged goat cheese as well, but in general, french cheeses are far too strong for my tastes.

After the cheese, there's dessert. In my host family (is this a french thing? I don't know) they're not all that fond of sugar. Usually, dessert is fresh fruit, fromage blanc (which I haven't tried yet), or yogurts. I usually have the fresh fruit, which is really amazing. There's been a lot clementines in season lately so that's what I've had. They're really good. Sometimes though, my host mother will give me an ice cream bar, which is pretty good, or sometimes she'll make an apple composition, ranging to a delicious apple mush thing to a apple crumble/crisp, which is even more amazing. Sometimes, she and my host father will take trips to Normandy, where they have a house. When they come back, she brings the most INCREDIBLE apples. They made the apple thing even more amazing.

During dinner, the conversation varies. On Wednesday, it was just her and I and goodness was I chatty. I learned a lot about her too, like that she likes Gone with the Wind and Woody Allen films. She also likes politics, swimming, and sewing. It was a very interesting conversation. Dinner topics are usually around what went on that day, but the french are much more open about politics and religion. They don't put as much stigma on it. The topic of money is just as taboo however.

We've talked politics in the past, mostly them talking, since I'm dreadfully clueless, and about films, which got my host father involved as well, since he's shy, like me. We've also discussed art. Neither of them are huge fans, but my host mother does know that she prefers the classic stuff and impressionism.

There's been some pretty cool dinners with them. I've shared dinner with their architect friend, a businessman friend from Tours, their french daughter in law and her 3 sons, who were all very sweet, and the mother/in law who had broken her arm. Easily my favorite dinner, however, was when one of the two sons came to visit with his Japanese wife and their 7 month son. It was an amazing dinner. The wife spoke better english than french, and so the conversation was in english, for the most part, but there was french here and there and some japanese phrases thrown in. It was 3 cultures all at once. The wife would talk about Japan, the husband would toss in something about something about his boyhood in france and then ask me if it was the same in america. There was lots of joking, teasing and really good conversation going around. I loved the wife. She was so kind and sweet but certainly hold her own against her husband. She was not quiet hip, but yet, with her personally, she was just that, but warm. It was truly a pleasure to talk to her. But I loved meeting everyone. Besides, it was working with people of all ages and generations. It was nice.

After dinner I will help clear the table off, thank my hostess for the meal, and wish both of my host parents a good evening. From there, I will spend the evening with homework or chatting to my mom or friends. It is when I relax.

And that, folks, is a day in the life.

What's in the bag

So I'd thought I'd give you guys a look inside the bag I carry around everyday to give you a sense of the essentials.

First off, the bag:
I always carry two, but let's go through the one I never leave home without first.
It is small and compact. There is a pocket for keys, phone and money. I bought it . . . at a travel related store years ago, before I went to Peru. It's called a money belt/bag, I think.

In this bag:

 My apartment keys. With my key-chains, of course.

One of them is my host families'. The castle one I bought in the Loire Valley. 

My metro card.

You've seen this before.

2 debit cards. One for food money, courtesy of my program, and my normal one.
ID card, health insurance card.
FIVE student cards.
Chapstick.
Glasses cleaner.
Euros. No one will ever take the dollar, for obvious reasons and usually you have to have at least 15 euro bill to use your card in France. ATMs are also much cheaper than in the USA. Only .77 or so per transaction as opposed to the $3 for the ones back home.

Iphone. You know what these look like.
French phone

Very basic. But useful. You can buy fancy ones if you so desire. I didn't. 

The main reason I wanted to do this post was to talk about phone options in France. When I was in USA no one told me ANYTHING about them or what the options were, but I am here to tell you what every sane study abroad student does while in Paris. BUT, just an FYI, it is very expensive whatever you do. BUT if you want to be able to talk to people who live in France but also people in the USA, THIS is what you do:

You need two phones. End of story. "But what about SIM cards?" you all are thinking. Here's the thing. If you hope to chat with people at home on your phone at all, a sim card will not work for you. What a sim card does is it fiddles with your American phone so that it only can dial and receive french phone calls. If you want to talk to your mom, you'll have to manually take out the sim card. Impossible? No. A huge pain? YES! Btw, even though only the sales people are supposed to be able to take the sim card in and out, there's a super easy way to do it. Earrings. I used the strong backs of the ones my boyfriend gave me. No damage to earrings or phone. You just put the end into the small hole on the upper side and push gently. Voila.

Rapunzel's happy. Why aren't you happy?

BUT as I said, this is not the way to go. Instead, take the cheaper and better option. Buy an french phone at a store like Orange (though personally, I don't recommend them because they're not very nice, they do cover a lot of places and have stores all over). They'll cost about 30 euro. Then, you'll need to buy minutes on the phone. The best plan is the one for 20 euro that lasts a month and gives you unlimited messaging. However, these phones will run out of minutes eventually, so you'll need to do what the french call recharging your phone. You can go to a store and ask or call them. But if you're like me and don't like the idea of trying to ask for help in a foreign language, just look up their website and you can recharge online. Google translate included.
You'll need to have an international plan for your normal phone (and you'll need an iphone 5 or something that comes unlocked so you can use it abroad. Almost every company other than Verizon uses the same phonage things as a europe though) and you'll need someone in the USA to call and activate your phone one you get to France! After that, it's home free. Be careful though, phone charges for data uses of any sort will skyrocket quickly. Turn off data roaming (under settings/cellular/voice roaming) instantly and pray. And try not to use your phone without wifi. That includes Viber, Skype, or any other otherwise free program.

For my other bag (a backpack or over the shoulder bag. Both very old):

Depending on the day,
Schoolbooks and notebooks.

Gloves

It gets randomly cold in France. These are lifesavers. 

Headphones.
A book.

Right now I'm obsessed with this one. A birthday gift from one of my friends. 

Puzzles

I'm much better at Sudoku than Crossword puzzles, but I bring both. It's excellent to bring on the metro. 

Sketchbook

This is a must have. I've had so many ideas on these metro trips. I also often bring I notebook for writing, but I never leave home without my sketchbook. This one was bought from one of the amazing bookstores in Paris, called Gibert Jeune, which is this amazing place with 4-5 stories of books . . . -drools- 

About 20 pens and pencils. I kid you not. I have them in light blue, purple, pink, dark pink, normal blue, black . . . and I have a ton of pencils too!

That's it!

À tout a l'heure, as the french say!