Mobile moments: night edition

With company in town this weekend, we spent a lot of time enjoying the three M's of Parisian tourism: Museums, Monuments and Meals! (In reverse order of importance, of course). With that in mind, I thought I'd share another set of M's--Mobile Moments, a special nighttime edition.

After enjoying a three course French meal at one of our favorite restaurants, we led our invités to the center of Paris for a stroll through the City of Lights' best-lit tourist spots. Figuring that I would leave the picture-taking up to the real tourists I didn't bother to bring a camera, but it was such a lovely evening that I ended up regretting it and making do as best as I could with my cellphone.

We got off the métro at Place de la Concorde just in time to catch the hourly sparkling of the Eiffel Tower (in the distance, behind the Egyptian obelisk):

A view of Pont de la Concorde with the Eiffel Tower in the background.
And again, from further away:
Looking down through the leaves onto the quai that runs alongside the Seine:
A misty night by the reflecting pools outside the Louvre:
The famous pyramide looks so much more mysterious at night:

franco-anglo-mascots

One of my tasks at work this week was to make signs to post up around the center that will encourage students to speak French (because in theory, we're an immersion program, although the kids seem to stick to French for about a week before relapsing back in English). I was bored and took this as an opportunity to get creative with Photoshop, creating a few mascots of francophone/anglophone fusion to decorate my posters.

I called this one the Statue of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. She is armed with a (not-so-)Petit Robert, the classic French dictionary, and a baguette.


Next up, Oncle Sam wants YOU to speak French!
My last experiment in graphic design was a parody easily understood by Parisians, of the ubiquitous "Wall Street English" métro posters. The company has long been the most well known (and most obnoxious) business English program in the city, and the current campaign features, as Tom describes it, "terrible stock photos and slightly-too-old young people" with either American or British flags imprinted on their tongues:
For my version, I altered an iconic image of a more heroic smarty pants. I call him Freinstein: