I’m now in London, having taken the EuroStar train under the English Channel.
Let’s see… the last two days in Paris were pretty wild, even as we were wrapping up our study program. On Thursday, we visited one of L’Oreal’s manufacturing facilities on the outskirts of Paris. They have a nice auditorium for hosting guests and making presentations, not too surprising since they are a large company. The facility itself was mostly a "no photos" place since actual work goes on here. Inside the buildings, we were on a raised platform overlooking the manufacturing facility. This was an assembly facility for L’Oreal’s Garnier brand where hair coloring kits and skin care products are assembled. I’m surprised at how many brands L’Oreal owns, including Lancome, Maybeline and even does stuff for other brands.
I’m sure everyone has seen pictures or videos of manufacturing facilities before… lots of machines, with very few people walking around. At this site, there were very few humans working, the machine almost fully automated, pulling supplies out from crates, performing everything from filling the bottles, grouping the necessary components for hair color kit together, to boxing it all up, assembling cartons and putting it all together on a pallet. There’s even a complicated machine that does nothing but tilt a box on its side, and another machine that makes sure bottles and bottle caps are all lined up in the right direction! It’s quite hypnotic to watch the machines at work, churning out hundreds and thousands of completed products. The only time I saw a human get involved was when refilling the supplies, or when a machine had a rare jam.
For fun stuff, I broke away with a few friends that night to go see the current show at the Moulin Rouge, "Faerie!" We managed to sneak in to the 11pm showing, last show of the night, and when I say sneak in, I mean it! (Ask me about this sometime 😉 ) This was a strictly no photos affair and I saw them asking people to check cameras at the reception. After all, this is a topless show! Still, that didn’t stop people from taking photos using cell phone cameras… ahh, technology. The show itself was quite impressive, with a stunning display of aerobics and gymnastics, and the actresses were quite… talented. One particularly impressive performance was of a mostly naked girl inside a raised glass tank full of water swim-dancing with snakes.
Between acts, they had a few comedy scenes come in for the intermissions. They were quite funny, with little-to-no speaking, and reaches out to the very international crowd. You can also get the gist of the storylines as they are pretty dramatic in their motions, even if you can’t understand the French songs. The show ended with the traditional cancan.
Friday was the last day of class. I was expecting to be completely out of it in the morning since we had 4 hours of lectures, and on average, each of us only got about 4 hours of sleep, but our lecturers were quite interesting and held our attention for the entire time! We finishes with ESCP-EAP with a nice buffet lunch, followed by an informal certificate presentation ceremony for each of us. Most of the class then went to Versailles for a quick tour, but since I had already been there, I decided to go to Montmarte instead.
Montmarte is on a small hill on the north side of Paris, with a cathedral at the top. It’s quite an impressive building, one you can see from almost anywhere in Paris and has one of the better views of the city. Unfortunately, it was raining, so I didn’t take that many photos. Strangely, I seem to always hit a church during mass! The streets around Montmarte had lots of small shops and souvenir stores. Oh, one more thing, apparently a big sale takes place in France every year starting on the 26th or so, with prices being cut by up to 50%! Many clothing stores and more had lots of things for sale, and the Parisians were out in force to snap up bargains!
From Montmarte, I walked up the street to the Moulin Rouge to get a photo of the famous windmill since I didn’t bring my camera the night before. As you can see, the weather isn’t too good, with rain coming on and off throughout the day. The area around the Moulin Rouge is the Paris red-light district, lots of strip clubs, lap dances, and various sex shops all around the area, with a few people trying to drag you in. It was getting a little annoying trying to dodge people after a while. I guess when they see a male tourist wandering around alone, they assume he’d be a customer.
After a brief rest at the hotel, it was out again for the evening, meeting up with most of the class for a cruise around Paris and our final dinner together. Quite ironically, the cruise was the last thing I did in Paris, getting a final look around the city and seeing all the sights I’ve visited over the last two weeks one last time. I guess if you’re coming to Paris for the first time, it would be a better idea to do the cruise first 🙂