One night in Paris

It has been a long time coming yet I have finally got a post up. I intended to do this a while back yet I got distracted with other things and was not sure if I should use flash or video. After thinking and playing for a while it seemed best to go back to video. Then video had some problems which I was able to resolve.

Well definitely enjoyed my trip to France and wish to go back. I felt absorbed in the 17 and 18th centuries as I moved around the streets. Most of things I saw were older than Australia and larger than most things in Australia. Not even sure why at the very end when I looked at the the Arc de Triompe that i still said "Damn! that is so big" still.

The highlight for me in Paris were the Arenes de Lutece (Roman ruins), seeing the Eiffel Tower, and entering the Luxemburg Gardens. Although the temperature moved from minuses to positives here I still imagined being a gladiator and fighting off lions and stuff. From there it was not long to see the Eiffel Tower standing tall in the distance. When I entered the Luxemburg Gardens it felt as if I entered a whole new place, as the sun started to shine and the grey was painted over with greenery energising me. Even though it was still cold it did not feel that way there.

I did the Davinci Tour on my own, noting spots that I could remember in the book and making sure I put them into my voyage. I saw the Louvre Pyramid, (no grail though that I could see), the Garden of Tuileries, and the Church of Saint Suplice. I forgot to check out the Rose Line yet I plan to go back one day.

I wanted to climb the Eiffel Tower except when I arrived there it looked like all of Europe had the same idea and it started to rain so I thought I would do it next time. My path around Paris is as follows Charles De Gaulle Airport, Chatelet Station & Formum de Halles, Place de Victories (sunrise here at 8am local time), Hotel, Breakfast at the cafe near the Louvre, Hotel de Ville, Notre Dame, St Stevens du Mont, Panethon, Arenes de Lutece Roman ruins, Jardin du Luxemburg, Palais du Luxemberg, St Suplice, Jardin of Babylone, Dome des Invalides (camera battery started to redlight), Eiffel Tower, Palais de Chailot, Palais de Tokyo, Avenue des Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, Palais de l'Elysee, Place de Concorde, Jardin des Tuileries, Jardin du Carrousel, The Louvre Pyramid, and finally after 8 hours back to the cafe and on to the hotel for a planned shower and 5 minute power nap, before the next part. That is my speed tourism of Paris and when I come back I will be here longer and hope to spend time appreciating more. In the meantime I am inspired to enroll in French classes so that I can do more than order food and ask directions**.

Photo movie of my wanderings around Paris, to an unusual French song.
(Couldn't really find a song that fit so i just picked on I liked.)

** Can that happen to me? I remember in two and half years in Vietnam that was the limit of my language skills.

The journey to the north

A while back I went to my home town. A road trip with a full car to help my friend settle into a new town. Being there really brought back memories, and unlike being in Melbourne, which is beautiful, cosmopolitan, and bustling, I really felt peaceful, a calmness that I hadn't felt since being in Long Xuyen.

Along the way I managed to shoot some photos and videos. On Sunday, I decided it was time to get cracking on one of my projects I had thought about for a while - Showing the world how different Australia is. And a journey from the bottom to the central eastern coast has a lot of variation. Unfortunately when we got to the mountains it was dark and raining so I didn't get any pictures of this variation in landscape. Just imagine mountains with rain forest and lots of steep winding roads.

This is my first decent project with the Premier Video editing software. I am pretty impressed with the way it turned out, yet couldn't find the Star Wars transitions, although some karaoke regulars might notice some of the karaoke transitions present. I wanted to do the Indiana Jones type maps where the map scrolls in the background over the foreground, yet I didn't have the patience to find out how to do it. I did a quick variation which I think does the job.

I opened the soundbooth program for the first time and found it a bit ordinary. I quickly reverted back to soundforge yet found that I forgot what i was looking to do and went back to the open soundbooth program. After a short look I found an icon which looked like what I wanted to do and by trial and error I got the basic results I was after. I have to say with all the functions in soundforge it was overwhelming, and soundforge still looks more versatile than soundbooth.

Also with this project I have worked out how to encode the final vidoes better and keep the quality a little higher than the first attempt at making a video. Well here it is a video diary of the journey north.

Enjoy!