In the month of December, I have gone to an aquarium, a musical, and a play. The aquarium was actually an aquarium, a movie theater, an art gallery, and a TV station (well a green screen!) all in one. The musical was Mozart l'Opéra Rock and reminded me a lot of Mamma Mia. The play was at school, put on by French students, and very entertaining. While I am still very entertained by Paris in general (the people, the métro, the Frenchness, realizing that I think in French a lot now), I'm realizing what else I could be missing here in the way of entertainment--especially now that it's cold out and I don't feel the need to walk around outside all day every day anymore!
The Aquarium de Paris is "bien plus qu'un aquarium" (much more than an aquarium!) and includes Cinéaqua, which is a movie theater. My friend Katie and I spent five hours maybe more inside the aquarium/movie theater on a cold December day. We saw Nemo-like fish and seahorses, petted koi, looked at many artists' interpretations of Disney princesses, watched the movie Christmas with the Kranks dubbed in French, and took pictures in the green screen room. The green screen was probably our favorite part because we got to run from a dinosaur, have a dance party, and do the weather! It reminded me of third grade (I think) when I visited Kare11 with the Girl Scouts of Troop 397 and we met Belinda Jensen and saw that the weather map was not actually on the screen behind her...blew my mind then and it still does!
I didn't know what I was getting myself into with the musical Mozart L'Opera Rock, but I went one night with ISA. It turned out to be the story of Mozart's life set against a modern, colorful background with very sparkly costumes. It was described to me as kind of like Mamma Mia and it lived up to that description except not too much because I actually liked it! Now that I think of it, it was kind of Cirque du Soleil-esque. There was very little dialogue in between the loud, excited, almost yelled songs. The songs were kind of hard to follow sometimes, but the story was about Mozart's life and loves and music. It was so fast-paced and exciting, what's not to like? No one in the group liked it except me.
Finally, I saw a play at the Catho done by French students and a Venezuelan student who's in one of my classes! It included many short scenes of Shakespeare, Molière, and other great playwrights. It even had "La Cigale et La Fourmi," a story by Jean de la Fontaine based on Aesop's fable, which we happened to be talking about in one of my classes. I am definitely une cigale because I don't plan my life ahead of time! I gotta work on that! My favorite part was probably when all of the characters in one of the stories started singing Hakuna Matata! I'm not really sure how it related to anything, but it's a good song to live by!
It has also been kind of a sad time because everyone is leaving Paris, not to mention everyone is going back to DU from all over the world. ISA had a farewell tea party where there was no tea just champagne! It was fun to see people who I hadn't seen in a while and to say goodbye to my friends who I might not have seen otherwise. I hadn't seen some people since Morocco. I even got a kind of normal, kind of good picture of my friend Casey and me. We were roommates in Morocco, and she thinks I'm really weird, and we live like a block away from each other in Paris (well except that Paris doesn't have blocks but you know) and I tried to visit her once but her house doesn't have a doorbell so long story short, I hadn't seen her in a long time! Hahaha I miss Morocco and Morocco people! Now almost everyone is back in the States safe and sound except me and I'm on break in Paris for two weeks! Ok so another blog including Christmas-y stuff and break stuff is coming before the month--and year!--is over!
