Guess Who's Coming For Dinner Tonight?

OK, the title of this post is not great, but this is what I thought when I saw this picture in my album. This is the Rancor, a creature that we see in Star Wars – Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, which wants to eat Luke Skywalker, sent to death by the sluggy-shaped Jabba the Hutt (Tatooine's greatest gangsta). In fact, this is the puppet which was used to shoot the seen: it's only 30 cm high!
I saw this puppet at a Star Wars exhibition in Paris: yes, once again, I went to Paris, but just in the suburbs. It was round the beginning of March, I think. You won't get other picture, because I find them terrible: fearing not to have enough power in my batteries, I had switched off the flash, so that my pictures were ruined, in the end. This one is just correct. But going to Paris, that is to say 500 km from my home, was worth the trip, because my family and I saw many actual suits used in the 6 films (Darth Vader, Amidala, the Wookies, R2D2, Anakin, Jango Fett, etc.) and many other stage properties.

Disgusting, Wretched Pidgeons of Paris

I know I already said that I went to Paris in April 2005 with the school, but I went there again in August. Apart from being a special trip during the holiday, this would give the opportunity for me to show to my family a shop not so far away from Notre-Dame, a real "Cave of Ali-Baba" (if this rings a bell, because I don't know if this idiom is correct) in which you find all sorts of collectibles over Star Wars, the Lord of the Rings, comics, mini-figures, books, cards, etc.
Anyway, our day started by the visit of the Arche de la Défense, a huge square building with a hollow in it (google it). As we were having a break, eating bread, pidgeons came to us, begging us to give them some of our food. They were so wretched that I couldn't resist. And I took these pictures, where you can see some of the most ugly pidgeons in the world. (I know, it's silly to take photographs of that, but still.)

The Trinity

School trips are typically the place to have fun. Even in Notre-Dame de Paris, just in front of the cathedral. Our teachers agreed to take part in a photo shooting in which they pretend to be saints. At the left, my French teacher Mlle Simonis, then M. Simar (aka Rainman) and M. Jacquet. That's one of the best memories I keep from secondary school. In fact, all my good memories from secondary school are linked to a school trip, because you're more likely to have fun when you are not at school. For that matter, the school trip we did one year later for our last year at secondary school, in Greece, was also great fun. I'll talk about that later, trust me. I've got really interesting anecdotes to tell.

M. Simar Being Spied On

As I was too lazy to write a full description of a picture from my collection the last few days, you had to undergo these silly videos from YouTube that I love. I edict a new rule: whenever I want to put a video on this blog, I first have to describe a picture. And as I've got plenty of videos on my account, I've got to write a lot more on this blog. (Don't worry, I've a bunch of photographs. If you don't like that, don't hesitate to react by posting a comment.)
Good riddance. Now, as far as this particular picture is concerned, it also comes from this school trip in Paris, in April 2005. That one was taken in the morning, when we were waiting for the teachers to call us. From my bedroom in the Formule 1 Saint-Denis, we had a view on the teacher's room. It was sooo funny because we could spy on them and see them in underwear, and thus make several picture to make fun of them later on. (It's done, now!) Of course, we had to do that seriously—we didn't want to get caught due to the flash or sth. Here, you can see M. Simar (French teacher) wearing a vest (if it's the right word to characterize what we call "marcel" or "singlet" in French); to figure it out, just look Die Hard with Bruce Willis: he only wears this kind of clothing, or see the other picture. I have other views of M. Simar and his colleague M. Jacquet (Latin teacher), but they are not as neat as that one (difficult, I was saying, to take a picture under these conditions), and we were thinking that they had an affair… This is what we do when we're getting bored.

A Meal in Paris

When you have walked for a whole day in Paris, when your feet are burnt and that you are about to go to the hospital, the best solution is to go to a restaurant. Being (still) on a school trip, the budget for eating was really limited, which almost obliged us to take a steak with French (!) fries two days in a row. On this picture, I'm on the left side, at the back. Next to me, with a surprised expression on his face and about to eat some fries, my good friend Alexandre. At the front, Cyril, who's currently studying law in Liège. In front of him, Mickaël, who now studies veterinary medicine in Namur. Next to him, Marc, also a law student in Liège and finally, in front of me, Nicolas, who's known for drinking a lot on certain occassions…

The Birds of Paris Eat in Your Hand!

When you go to Notre-Dame, in Paris, there's a large area in front of the cathedral. There are bushes with hundreds of these little birds, sparrows. If you have a particular kind of sugary bread, the birds fly to your hand to eat it! Pigdeons do it too, but they are less friendly-looking… especially if they leave a trace on you, if you knoiw what I mean. Anyway, it's really exceptional that sparrows get so close to humans.

A Shop With Displaying Fake Guns…

In Paris, you can find really amazing things, such as this shop, which was full of fake guns, what we call in French "pistolets à billes". You could find all sorts of guns in there, from the little and crappy Colt to the AK-47… Everything was fake, but this was amazing! I'm not for guns, but this kind of stuff just make me laugh because they exist: how did it come that someone, someday, just got the idea of making fake guns that shoot small plastic balls?

"Portrait du Docteur Gachet" by Van Gogh

I also took this photograph during our visit in the Musée d'Orsay: this is a painting by Van Gogh, "Portrait du Docteur Gachet". I don't know who this man was, so click on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Doctor_Gachet. They say there are two versions of it. Curious. Anyway, I like this picture because we see it (well in fact a copy of it) in Mel Brooks' film "Life Stinks" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Stinks), one of my personal favourites. In French, Goddard Bolt (Mel Brooks) was shouting "Mon Van Gogh !". Obviously, it doesn't appear to be funny when you read it, so just watch it.

The Choice of a Hotel is not Easy

Again a picture taken while being on a trip in Paris. We were all walking in the streets, going from famous place to famous place. Here, we were in front of the Ritz, on the Place Vendôme, probably the most expensive area in Paris, where the biggest jeweleers must have a shop. On the picture, you can see M. Jacquet (on the left), my tutor and Latin teacher, and M. Simar, French teacher. They look as if, while pointing the Ritz, they think they'd better have chosen this hotel instead of the inexpensive (but comfortable, though) Formule 1 in Saint-Denis.

Visite du Louvre (April 2005)

When I was at secondary school, 5th year, we all went to Paris as a cultural trip of three days. On the first day, we went to the Louvre to see the most famous items of the collection, including the Venus of Milo, Samothrace's Victory, the Mona Lisa, the "Radeau de la Méduse" and also "La Liberté guidant le peuple" by Eugène Delacroix, where you see this allegory of France personified as Marianne, who leads the people (and Eugène Delacroix—hidden self-portrait) half-naked with the "bleu-blanc-rouge" flag. On that third picture, you can see one of my favourite teachers, namely M. Christian Jacquet, with whom I studied Latin during three years.