[Cooney]

Date: 01/12/07
Time: 14h00
Location: Sea-Tac Airport, Seattle, WA, USA

Sitting in the airport terminal, we're told that we'll have a slight delay as it has quite suddenly started snowing at the airport. Not a real problem, just need to wait for de-icing. I do my best to understand the announcements being made in French, double-checking them against the announcements made in English. I eavesdrop a bit on French people talking, to see if I can pick things out. Soon, we are called for boarding, and I step aboard to discover (to my surprise) that we're on an A340 instead of an A330, the usual equipment from SEA to CDG. Not a huge number of differences from a passenger's perspective, just an interesting footnote. The plane change has resulted in getting a different seat than originally picked, but I still score an aisle seat with nobody next to me. Sweetness.

The flight goes smoothly. I eat the food (pretty good, really), watch a couple movies (Une Fille Couper En Deux and Bourne Ultimatum, the French title for which translates as "Vengeance In The Skin"). I had planned to use French on the flight with the attendants, but chickened out. They all spoke pretty good to very good English, which they used regularly, even with each other. I listen to Psychédélices on my iPod a couple times, reading along with print outs of the lyrics, and rolling over meanings in my head.

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Date: 02/12/07
Time: 9h00
Location: Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris, France

We land at Charles de Gaulle airport in France. The airport is beautiful and modern, with art installations and colored glass. I follow my life-long airport mantra of walking around looking up, as that's where signs are, and going wherever they point me. Despite the massive size of CDG and its frequently confusing routes, this policy works well and I find myself rapidly passing through French customs (didn't have to say a word) and emerging in to the baggage claim. From there, I follow more signs and find myself emerging in to a sort of plaza area of the airport, from which Air France runs a shuttle service to various locations in downtown Paris. My first sentence in French is "I would like to buy a ticket on bus number 2 for Charles de Gaulle - Etoille, please." Not very romantic, but hey, it worked.

I get on the bus, and soon we depart. I have a bit of trouble figuring out what route we're taking in to the city, but as the Eiffel Tower suddenly comes in to view over rooftops, I've no doubt we're headed the right way. Even more sudden was the turn towards the Arc de Triumph. As we turn off of a roundabout, I see a sign indicating we're heading towards the Arc. I look up the street, and there, dominating the skyline, it is. Our bus orbits around it, and pulls on to one of the radial streets to let us off. I immediately take pictures (I AM a tourist, after all), and then set about to figure out which way the hotel is. I'm not as good at finding street signs as I am at finding airport signs, but looking at where the Eiffel Tower is relative to the Arc, I get my bearings, and head off in the right direction. I soon find the street signs I need, and some time around 11h or 11h30 I walk in to the lobby of our hotel, and meet CFHollister, Roman, and Snatcher42 who'd had arrived earlier, and were kindly waiting for me.

To burn some time until our rooms are ready, we head off towards the Champs-Elysées, to scout out the Virgin Megastore where the event will take place. In the entrance hallway, on either side, we find huge advertisements trumpeting Alizée's appearance the following night. We walk throughout the store, locate her previous albums on sale for kicks, and I ask a clerk where the event will be. He responds that it will be on the first floor, when they set it up, which they haven't yet. I get the impression he's been asked quite a few times.

We head back to the hotel, where the rooms are ready, and check in. We hang around there for a while, getting adjusted, and catching a few quick Z's in CF's case. RMJ shows up and joins us, followed not too long after by Will, a friend of RMJ and Snatcher42 from AFC. Will brings the International Fan t-shirts we're all going to wear for the event. We head out again, as a group, back to the Champs. A storm has been brewing, however, and pouring rain is accompanied by gale force winds, strong enough to send chairs flying, knock over potted trees, and cause restaurants to batten down the hatches on their outdoor terraces. Despite this, we decide to head to the Eiffel Tower and get some pictures. Roman and I haven't ever been to Paris, so the others are kind enough to play along and make sure we get to do this. We reach the large plaza across the Seine from the tower, just above the location where many concerts are held. Visions of JPVA at the foot of the tower dance in my eyes, and RMJ takes some pictures for us. As it is becoming ever colder and wetter, we decide to retreat back to the hotel rather than stay outside and catch pneumonia, so we grab the metro back to Charles de Gaulle - Etoille and hit the hotel. We do dinner separately, and make plans to meet the next day.

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Date: 03/12/07
Time: 09h30
Location: Virgin Megastore, Champs-Elysées, Paris, France

We begin gathering outside the store, which opens at 10h00. We aren't the only ones there - four or five other Alizée fans are lingering, as well as couple people waiting to buy tickets for, I believe, a Celine Dion concert. As the giant doors open, people start to surge forward, but are held in check by a polite guard who wants to make sure the door displays are set up first. When he gives the go, in we come, and by 10h05 we’ve all got copies of the album in our hands. We notice another guy standing around holding an Alizée disc, and CF asks if he’s there for the Alizée event. He says yes, so I head over to say hello and introduce us in French, as best I can. Turns out, he’s an AFC member who goes by “Lynx,” and we chat a little bit. Looking at our watches and trying to figure out what to do with the next seven and three quarter hours before she arrives, we decide to sit on the steps in the store. Somebody comes up and asks Lynx if the rest of us are foreign fans, and upon hearing that we are, he comes over to say hello. He’s a very pleasant Belgian fellow, though not active on any of the forums. We had a decent chat about Alizée, weather, distribution of different promo items, and things like that, when a security guards comes and asks us to move. At first I thought he was asking us to leave the store, but checking with Lynx, it was just that they didn’t want us to be sitting on their main stairway all day. We were ok, as long as we were up and moving around.

We split up and wandered the store for a few hours, with people taking breaks at various points to go get food and such. I step out for around half an hour at 13h30, and then return to do a second circuit of the DVD section. While I walk around the section, I glance down stairs occasionally to see if they’re setting anything up yet. When 15h30 arrives, I get suspicious that I haven’t seen anything, and that I’m not seeing any other members I’m traveling with, so I walk downstairs. Much to my surprise, I see they have the line set up in the entrance hallway, headed towards the street, where it has been for about half an hour. My colleagues yell at me to get over there, apparently having been a bit alarmed by my absence, not realizing I was just upstairs oblivious to the preparations under my very nose. They had saved a place for me in line, and fortunately, the knot of hardcore fans directly behind them didn’t object when I slipped under the rope to join them. This may have had something to do with the fact that we were all dressed in matching Alizée shirts, and so were obviously together, but either way, it was cool. Apparently, in my absence, I’d missed the arrival of well known fan Jessica (Alizeeclochette) who was around, but I got to meet her later, when it turned out she was in line with the group immediately behind us. I got the chance to introduce myself as the person who’d contacted from Alizée America to do a translation of her story, which she remembered and was cool with.

At around 17h00, the store managers seemed to realize that they had a very sizeable crowd on hand, and began moving crowd control barriers out on to the wide sidewalks of the Champs-Elysées to contain them and maintain order. Around 17h30 they moved everybody forward and packed us in tight, but the line was growing ever-longer, 3 or 4 people wide, and stretching from the heart of the store out on to the sidewalk, and then snaking back and forth against the street. Unknowing shoppers kept stopping and asking what was going on, and then going “Ahhh yes, Alizée” when we told them or pointed them to the signs. Part of the area near where the registers normally are was cleared, and a small platform moved in, with a table and chairs. There was a set of glass double doors leading to the back right behind the platform, and everybody kept their eyes and cameras trained on them. Occasionally some security guard would walk across the stage and suddenly everybody would leap up, but mostly anticipation filled the air. Then, the music that was playing continuously throughout the day stopped. Every TV in the store went black, and we saw the words “Mademoiselle Juliette” appear on screen… the beginning of her video.

There was a huge roar of applause, and quite suddenly Alizée herself appeared, not from the double doors, but coming across the lobby with her entourage around her. She smiled and waved, we screamed and sang along with the video. The very first moments I saw her, I could not believe what I was seeing. It was like looking at a movie screen – it just couldn’t be real. Somehow it was, but I didn’t believe it – human beings just cannot be like that. She is unfathomably beautiful – a hundred times more so in person than in any photograph I’ve ever seen, but it wasn’t just her beauty. I swear, she positively radiated an aura of happiness, good will, and light. She positively glowed, like one could pick her out in glimpses through the crowd (which now included dozens of press photographers) based only on the reflected light from her sparkling eyes, open mouth smiles, and perfect hair. She consulted only a few moments with her team before diving in. The small group of fans ahead of us took their turns, and soon it was us. I’ll let each person describe their own experience and conversations, that I cannot do for others, but my own was roughly this (in French):

Me: Hello!
Alizée: Hello!
Me: How are you doing?
Alizée: I’m doing well, how are you?
Me: I’m doing really great. I flew from the United States just to see you here today. It’s like a dream come true.
Alizée: Oh, aren’t you the one that posted you were coming from there on my MySpace?
Me: Yes, yes that was me. I go by “Cooney” there, and on Alizée America
Alizée: Ok, who shall I make this out to?
Me: My name is Evan, E V A N
Alizée: Ok, Evan. (signs vinyl, opens up the standard version disc to the inside cover). Do you want it here on the inside?
Me: Yes please, that would be great
Alizée: Ok, for Evan (she pronounces my name Uh-Van, which I certainly don’t mind!)
Me: Thank you very much!
Alizée: See you soon!
Me: Yes, see you soon!

And just like that, I was done. It was about 30 seconds, but it was perhaps one of the best 30 seconds of my life. She looked up frequently, making eye contact with those impossibly-deep brown eyes of hers, and holy shit! She remembered my MySpace comments! I felt like I was floating, suspended in some sort of trance. I’m still a bit short of breath thinking about it, thinking about being close to her, sharing a smile, exchanging our few short words.

I joined the others on the exit side of the stage, where we stood, just watching the proceedings, for hours. The store cut additional people off from joining the line some time around 20h00, but even then, the end of the line didn’t reach her until 21h15. A huge mix of young and old, male and female, die hard and casual, people with gifts, autograph books, rare memorabilia, and kind words. She had smiles for everybody, and was particularly tender towards her young fans, kids some of whom couldn’t be more than 12 years old, who mixed in with the college age and older crowd, parents in tow (who often seemed to also be fans themselves). Reporters and photographers slipped in and out, taking pictures, video taping, and interviewing people. Her father was there as one of the photographers, too, which was cool. They took close up photos of almost every signing being done – I’m hoping these will be made available somewhere, but who knows? During the entire event, nothing played in the store except the album Psychédélices on continuous loop. The final time through on Décollage, Snatcher42 got our group to clap along with the entire song, which earned a broad smile our direction from our princess.

When finally the end of the line reached her, she capped her pen, stood up, and the glass doors behind her opened. The crowd roared again, screaming her name, and she turned one last time to give a wave, flash her rapturous smile, and say thank you before hopping nimbly off the back of the stage and disappearing in to the darkness. We lingered a bit, looking at each other, before finally snapping out of it and making our way back to the hotel. We went up to one of the rooms, where we took group pictures, and RMJ broke out his laptop to go through the pics we took, and watch the bonus DVD from the limited edition for the first time.

Minor Spoiler, highlight to read:
(I have a sudden love for bright red mint condition late 60’s Mustangs.)

We said our goodbyes that night, as we were leaving at various points the next morning, and wouldn’t likely see each other before then.

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Date: 04/12/07
Time: 08h00
Location: Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris, France

I’m back at the airport, finding my way to check in. I have a pleasant conversation with one of the security officers, and we commiserate about how silly passengers behave sometimes. I’m delighted to find that I can carry on fairly long conversations without too much difficulty (talked for 15 minutes or so with one guy, the previous night), and despite what I’m sure must be a fairly obvious accent on my part, nobody seems to have trouble understanding me. This time, on the plane, I don’t chicken out. As the attendants move down the aisles, speaking in English to all the Americans around me, they switch to French every time they reach me, without waiting for me to say anything. Point of pride, yay! I’m a hell of a long ways from anything resembling fluency, but it’s a good first step, and certainly a big leap for me in terms of my confidence level on understanding and using spoken words.

On the flight back, I carry my shopping bag with my precious Alizée autographed items as an independent carry on item, keeping it in my lap much of the time, and certainly paying more attention to it than my suitcase or backpack. I manage to get it home safely, and am delighted to find that the CD’s and DVD’s I ordered from Amazon arrived as well, the day after release. Now I have my collection items on my shelves, and my user copies ready for countless hours in my CD players.

As for Alizée – I cannot say enough. This young woman, whose language I’m only beginning to understand, and whose home is thousands of miles from mine, has changed my life in ways I can hardly comprehend. I though I was a fan before. If I was, she has made me in to something much more than that now. I don’t know what to call it. I feel a strong love for her, like that I feel for a close friend, or a family member. I will remain her fan, cheer her on, and be her supporter for as far as I can foresee. Thank you Alizée, for everything you have done!