Thursday, July 9, 2009
Coucou, les nouveaux AFSers!
So I've come to understand that AFS has been directing AFS hopefuls to my blog, so that I can take them under my wing and guide them. Or something. This surprised me at first, but it makes complete sense. Had I been told before, I might've written the blog more geared towards that audience, thus lacking authenticity. Basically, what I wanted to say to all you (resisting the urge to say n00bs) newcomers is, I hope that my blog has been helpful, or at least amusing. If you have any further questions, comments or concerns, please feel free to find me on facebook or drop a comment on a post, and yes, I'll even see the comments on those older posts. I just want to preface now though that AFS will you send you books (I'm serious, I have three of them on my desk right now) of information, there will also be meetings, letters, that group call, orientations, and all that. So, really, in the vein of orthodox advice, they've got you covered, so I guess ask me the weird stuff. Or specifically me stuff. (Whoo, feelin a little arrogant..."go ahead and ask me about me, I'm very interesting, you know...")
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Sunburnt and Rainsoaked
Sigh. Facebook isn't wanting to upload my photos, so I actually have to write a real blog. Heavy sigh.
Well, let's start with the title: I'm sun burnt, and because my family has never heard of aloe vera, I'm getting dry and flaky... But I am in this such sizzled state due to a little something called the Puy du Fou. I guess it means Well of Crazy or something, but whenever I tried to ask Thomas asked "why is the world round?" and then told me it was just a name and didn't matter. It is a theme park, but instead of rides there are "spectacles!" And not the one's that help you see better, my friend. We went for the weekend, this is about what the plan was:
Saturday: 2:45 - 3:15, Le Bal des Oiseaux Fantomes (The Ball of the Phantom Birds), a demonstration of falconry.
3:45 - 4:00, Le Magicien Ménestrel (The Minstrel Magician), magic tricks and the like.
4:00 - 4:10, Les Grandes Eaux (The Grand Waters), fountains synchronized to classical music.
4:45 - 5:20, La Bataille du Donjon (The Battle of the Dungeon), an equestrian demonstration with sword fighting....and moving, flamethrowing castles...
5:30 - 5:37, Les Automates Musiciens (The Automated Musicians), robots with instruments popping out windows, playing recorded music, while a guy runs around and asks them to stop.
10:30 - 12:30, I don't know what it was called, but it was the epic telling of the story of the Puy du Fou, starting in the Middle Ages and ending sometime after World War Two. It was indescribably epic, words fail me, thus you must wait for pictures (sorry).
Sunday: 11:30 - 12:00, Le Bal des Oiseaux Fantomes, because it was really the only thing going on at the time and we all liked it. A hawk jumped on Thomas' head!
1:00 - 1:15, Le Legende de Martin (The Legend of Martin. See? French is easy), a musical puppet show. Sufficiently silly.
1:45 - 1:55, Les Grandes Eaux, there was a whole lot less to do Sunday...
2:30 - 3:00, Les Vikings (I'll give you a hint, it's exactly the same), kind of a rip-off of Pirates of the Caribbean. As in for a good chunk of it, they played the music of Pirates and the choreography was the same.. And there was a boat that rose from the water..with a guy standing on it. And then shot giant flames. And then Jesus rose from the water, walked on water, carrying the baby a viking had thrown in the water, then turned into a dove. I am not making this up.
3:15 - 4:00, Gladiateurs, a Roman general turned Christian and fights 40 minutes of gory gladiator battles and does a chariot race, gets locked in a cage and the Christian slave he loves gets tied to a pole to get eaten by a lions, then a tiger, but because she prays, God turns them into lolcats as they roll on their backs and look adorable. Then they kill the Emperor.
4:15 - 4:25, L'Odysee du Puy du Fou, it was like a haunted house, with shields and tapestry and ceilings turning into screens. And statues not actually being statues but real people, and walls that expand, and cool fountain-work. Pretty cool stuff.
4:30 - 4:30something, Le Chemin de la Memoire (Memory Lane, kind of), you walk along a path and look at statues kind of following the story of the Saturday night spectacle.
5:00 - 5:35, Mousquetaire de Richelieu, a guy falls in love with a girl who's a flamenco dancer who wants to be a comedian, but she leaves and he gets in trouble with the law and disguises himself as a hunchback, but fights with the real musketeers and they forgave him because he fought so well. Then he finds the girl in the Orient, and then they flood the stage and they dance flamenco, the guy on his horse the whole time. And Thomas fought the guy when he was a hunchback (he was walking around before it started). Okay, so he didn't actually fight him, but it was funny, they did the cartoony "put up your fists" thing.
And now, the rain soaked: This was Tuesday, a day in which I did many a great thing. Kind of. I tried to visit the Opera of Paris and the Bourse, but I think I got the wrong building each time (it'd help if I looked at pictures of these things before I went, so I knew what I was looking for). Then I went to Cimitiere de Pere Lachaise. A huge cemetery with a lot of famous people in it, like Oscar Wilde (no, I didn't kiss the grave). Oh, the best part about the cemetery, though, was when I was literally walking through the grand door, the wind picked up and it started raining. Then it was the Grande Arche de la Defense, which was indeed a very large arch. And there was a gigantic, mainly underground mall there, with a dome-shaped movie theater. I want to talk about these malls really quick, they always catch me off guard. I'll be walking through the metro station, trying to catch the next one or just looking for the exit, then I find this vast expansive area that bleeds seamlessly into he grimy tunnels I know to be the station. I think nothing of it at first, often one tends to see the occasional vendor trapped beneath the earth's surface, to cater to the needs of all those rushing by who might've forgotten something. Though I continue, and see larger stores, and stores that I recognize, escalators going up and down, multiple stages all existing below the streets and pedestrians above, and these malls are huge. Okay, maybe that wasn't real quick...Oh, I bought Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, and new music makes me happy. Then I went to go visit les Invalides, then I was like, "Hey, I've been here before." So I left. I ran into Darmy though, sorry I couldn't make it to the picnic, I ended up hanging out with Thomas most the day because it was his last day in France before he leaves for two months.
Is that everything? I think so.
Well, let's start with the title: I'm sun burnt, and because my family has never heard of aloe vera, I'm getting dry and flaky... But I am in this such sizzled state due to a little something called the Puy du Fou. I guess it means Well of Crazy or something, but whenever I tried to ask Thomas asked "why is the world round?" and then told me it was just a name and didn't matter. It is a theme park, but instead of rides there are "spectacles!" And not the one's that help you see better, my friend. We went for the weekend, this is about what the plan was:
Saturday: 2:45 - 3:15, Le Bal des Oiseaux Fantomes (The Ball of the Phantom Birds), a demonstration of falconry.
3:45 - 4:00, Le Magicien Ménestrel (The Minstrel Magician), magic tricks and the like.
4:00 - 4:10, Les Grandes Eaux (The Grand Waters), fountains synchronized to classical music.
4:45 - 5:20, La Bataille du Donjon (The Battle of the Dungeon), an equestrian demonstration with sword fighting....and moving, flamethrowing castles...
5:30 - 5:37, Les Automates Musiciens (The Automated Musicians), robots with instruments popping out windows, playing recorded music, while a guy runs around and asks them to stop.
10:30 - 12:30, I don't know what it was called, but it was the epic telling of the story of the Puy du Fou, starting in the Middle Ages and ending sometime after World War Two. It was indescribably epic, words fail me, thus you must wait for pictures (sorry).
Sunday: 11:30 - 12:00, Le Bal des Oiseaux Fantomes, because it was really the only thing going on at the time and we all liked it. A hawk jumped on Thomas' head!
1:00 - 1:15, Le Legende de Martin (The Legend of Martin. See? French is easy), a musical puppet show. Sufficiently silly.
1:45 - 1:55, Les Grandes Eaux, there was a whole lot less to do Sunday...
2:30 - 3:00, Les Vikings (I'll give you a hint, it's exactly the same), kind of a rip-off of Pirates of the Caribbean. As in for a good chunk of it, they played the music of Pirates and the choreography was the same.. And there was a boat that rose from the water..with a guy standing on it. And then shot giant flames. And then Jesus rose from the water, walked on water, carrying the baby a viking had thrown in the water, then turned into a dove. I am not making this up.
3:15 - 4:00, Gladiateurs, a Roman general turned Christian and fights 40 minutes of gory gladiator battles and does a chariot race, gets locked in a cage and the Christian slave he loves gets tied to a pole to get eaten by a lions, then a tiger, but because she prays, God turns them into lolcats as they roll on their backs and look adorable. Then they kill the Emperor.
4:15 - 4:25, L'Odysee du Puy du Fou, it was like a haunted house, with shields and tapestry and ceilings turning into screens. And statues not actually being statues but real people, and walls that expand, and cool fountain-work. Pretty cool stuff.
4:30 - 4:30something, Le Chemin de la Memoire (Memory Lane, kind of), you walk along a path and look at statues kind of following the story of the Saturday night spectacle.
5:00 - 5:35, Mousquetaire de Richelieu, a guy falls in love with a girl who's a flamenco dancer who wants to be a comedian, but she leaves and he gets in trouble with the law and disguises himself as a hunchback, but fights with the real musketeers and they forgave him because he fought so well. Then he finds the girl in the Orient, and then they flood the stage and they dance flamenco, the guy on his horse the whole time. And Thomas fought the guy when he was a hunchback (he was walking around before it started). Okay, so he didn't actually fight him, but it was funny, they did the cartoony "put up your fists" thing.
And now, the rain soaked: This was Tuesday, a day in which I did many a great thing. Kind of. I tried to visit the Opera of Paris and the Bourse, but I think I got the wrong building each time (it'd help if I looked at pictures of these things before I went, so I knew what I was looking for). Then I went to Cimitiere de Pere Lachaise. A huge cemetery with a lot of famous people in it, like Oscar Wilde (no, I didn't kiss the grave). Oh, the best part about the cemetery, though, was when I was literally walking through the grand door, the wind picked up and it started raining. Then it was the Grande Arche de la Defense, which was indeed a very large arch. And there was a gigantic, mainly underground mall there, with a dome-shaped movie theater. I want to talk about these malls really quick, they always catch me off guard. I'll be walking through the metro station, trying to catch the next one or just looking for the exit, then I find this vast expansive area that bleeds seamlessly into he grimy tunnels I know to be the station. I think nothing of it at first, often one tends to see the occasional vendor trapped beneath the earth's surface, to cater to the needs of all those rushing by who might've forgotten something. Though I continue, and see larger stores, and stores that I recognize, escalators going up and down, multiple stages all existing below the streets and pedestrians above, and these malls are huge. Okay, maybe that wasn't real quick...Oh, I bought Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, and new music makes me happy. Then I went to go visit les Invalides, then I was like, "Hey, I've been here before." So I left. I ran into Darmy though, sorry I couldn't make it to the picnic, I ended up hanging out with Thomas most the day because it was his last day in France before he leaves for two months.
Is that everything? I think so.
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