Ready Or Not...: 131201+02 Paris for Infinite "One Great Step"

as usual, this is a personal travel account, not an ordinary ~~whatever that means~~ fanaccount, so if you just wanna see my cams and pics, feel free to scroll way down past my yapping.

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if you wanna know how ticketing for Paris went, you can read the first part of this post, cos it sorta was connected to London ticketing, though not? I dunno, it was a mess, but you can check it out if you want to.

of course it wasn't by choice, but having two concerts this close together was hell. I was in the vortex that was Inpi-solo-concert-S-U-N-G-G-Y-U and then having to deal with more fucking flying and more concert jitters.
it would just have been better with at least a week or two apart. not complaining, it just didn't make the past week any easier.

when we left for Paris, hubs forgot his phone at home ~~cos the doofus HAD TO play games on the toilet~~ and we needed it to be able to check Turningpoint's twitter for meet-up details. but we knew we'd have wifi at the hotel, and I was sure Turningpoint would've tweeted by the time we were leaving the hotel for the venue, so no problem. famous last words...

the entire trip to Paris was unusually uneventful, but then again, by now Charles De Gaulle is the airport we've been in the most.
we even knocked on wood during the train ride into town cos everything had gone off without a hitch which is just very un-Paris-y.

Place de la République

and it wasn't until we arrived at the hotel, that Paris karma reared its ugly head.

Hotel Annexe

it turned out that we couldn't check in until 3pm, which was way too late since we needed to both meet with Turningpoint and eat somewhere before we went to queue.
besides it was only 12:15 and we had counted on a nap, cos we had been up since 4:30, and being able to change and stuff.
at least they had a "lounge", a tiny room with a couch, where we could hang out while we waited, and there was a tiny toilet where we could change.

it was such a frustrating situation, though, cos Turningpoint still hadn't tweeted, but we couldn't just sit there for hours, but if we went out there was no guarantee we could find anywhere with wifi and check later which would probably mean I would miss her once again. goddammit.

we were hungry, and getting more and more tired, plus there was a maid cleaning the lounge very aggressively, so by 1pm we left the hotel.

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finding Olympia was easy, and excitement started to bubble when we saw the red neon.

there were already a sizable queue, but we still had hours before we had planned to line up.

instead we went to this café-bistro thing right across the street from Olympia to have lunch.
it turned out to be a somewhat posh place, and the waitress turned out to be the spokes model for why people think Frenchies are rude. or she had bad PMS.

their menu selection was fairly small, but it looked really delicious when we saw what other people were being served. we ordered a goat's cheese thing for starters, just one we could share, and hubs ordered pasta and I ordered steak, rare, for main.
after a considerable wait, even for a busy place like this, she showed up with a plate of foie gras, and when we told her we ordered the goat's cheese, her lips tightened, she rolled her eyes, took the plate and left. that's it.
while we waited for the cheese she got other people's orders wrong, too.
another, nice waiter, asked us if we wanted to move to a window table, which we happily did.
once it got there, the cheese was really good and worth the wait.

when she got me the wrong main, we decided to just eat it and not tip her.

when we were paying and hubs had entered his PIN, she just handed him the receipt, turned, and left. no eye contact, no smile, no thank you, no have a nice day. just.... I dunno, even an insincere, fake smile is the least I expect when we just dropped €66.

oh well, she wasn't going to see Infinite so she may have just been extremely bitter.

le cheese

yes it's a steak, but the wrong one. at least it was rare.

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by now it was 15:15 and last time Turningpoint closed at 4, so I was extremely anxious to go find a place with wifi so we could check.
we had figured we'd just find a café since hubs wanted coffee anyway, but it seemed like things were either closed cos it was Sunday, or every café was more like a bistro/restaurant type place.

in the end we found a tiny Starbucks down a side street. they advertised free wifi so hubs got in line with the 732465876 other Inspirits, trying to escape the cold streets of Paris, while I tried to check twitter. in the end their wifi didn't work, and I wanted to cry.
we kept walking to see if we could find somewhere else, but then brilliant hubs suggested we just try and find a random open wifi here on the street.
me: "you can do that?!????!??!??! THEN WHAT THE HELL ARE WE WALKING AROUND FOR, MAN" /grabs his collar and shakes

we found one right away, and as it turned out, the time slot wasn't exactly like in London and we still had 20 mins until she closed. fortunately I knew exactly the place in the picture she had tweeted as meet-up point, so we rushed there.

Turningpoint was selling Hogam packs, too, apparently, so when we got there I was a little confused for a second cos I didn't see any Gyu things.
she was sitting with I-dunno-who-girl, and someone I assume is Honeytree, cos she was selling Honeytree packs, though some people in London said she wasn't there personally, so maybe this was just one of her minions.
in any case, I didn't lay into her even though I wanted to...

Turningpoint was the sweetest thing. when I told her my name she was all "omggggg Miaaaa!!!" and grabbed my hand and had a little happy bounce in her seat. so cute. she remembered how I didn't make it in London and she was so glad to see me here :)
not as glad as me, though, when she handed me the goods. I wanted to fuckiNG SQUEAL, but managed to be all grown up about it, so I just thanked her profusely, paid, and she waved and wished us both a happy concert with a big smile on her face.
터닝포인트 마스터님 고마웡ㅠㅠㅠ❤

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we walked around the block along the queue to see how long it was and it was really long, but it was still too early and we still had a few hours at least before we wanted to line up. so we just kept walking and a further down the street and around the corner, there was this huge grid where warm air (probably from the metro) was being blown up through, and we joked that if we could just stand here, it would be no problem to have to be outside for hours.
on the main boulevards it was a little windy, but in the smaller streets it was fine, and as long as we kept walking, it wasn't cold at all. I did wear my winter jacket cos of the wind, but I still had on flipflops.

we strolled around the neighbourhood and found a little café to sit in until we had to queue, and I could finally get a proper look at my goods. it was the most gorgeous thing ㅠㅠ

I know, my fingers look like they're more greasy than Namu, but it's that kind of glossy paper that's extremely sensitive. who cares, it's not gonna ever have that side out anyway.

SEND JESUS

we took turns looking at the photobook and calendar, but when I was on my 4th run through the book hubs started to get a little bored.
I sat with my back to the room, and at some point, three Koreans came in and while they waited for their coffee, they went all "aah Sunggyu~", and in the window reflection I could see them looking over my shoulder :)

about 5:30 we finally left the café and walked back to find the queue, and somehow we ended up standing on the warm air grid!

after only 45 mins the line did slowly started to move forward in veryyyy slow intervals, but boredom and impatience were driving me insane.
and that's with a street musician guy who played a beautiful Mozart piece on his Western concert flute as a thank you for a cigarette from the dad right in front of us in line, and a couple of drivers in their big huge posh cars, trying to parallel park while they waited for their bosses who were attending the FIA conference at the big hotel, the queue bypassed. thank god bumpers are made of plastic these days..

also, at some point this very eager fan came down the line, shouting that Infinite won something, but it was in French and I never got around to checking up on it later, but some sort of people's choice thingy?

wiser from London, I waited to put on my high heel boots until we were almost at the door, in hopes that I would be able to keep them on for more than five songs this time.
we packed coat (just mine cos hubs thought it would risk bending or creasing the Gyu goods if we stuffed both in there, so he would just pay for his coat separately ♥) and flipflops in the backpack, but what we thought was the cloakroom turned out to be where they held back confiscated DSLRs.
there were several, mostly small ones, so how the noonas managed to get freaking huge ones in is beyond me.
anyway, we found the right cloakroom, and were good to go.

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as soon as we turned the corner and stepped into the venue this was me, not even kidding.

even though it was way smaller, and smaller usually means better, I just..
the balcony was hanging so low it felt like hubs could reach up and touch it, and it blocked half the stage curtain, and on top of that, there were these two..I dunno what to call them, crew platforms? they were hanging from the balcony, right in front of the center of the stage, but they were hanging below the balcony and blocked even more of the view.
on another note, balcony front seats would have been ideal for this show.
so instead of dead center we went a little to the right cos Gyu's main side.

I'm not the best at selcas

about 2/3 of the floor was full by now and that was fine, it was as expected, and there were plenty of space in the back.

but the floor wasn't nearly as slanted as in London, and because of the balcony I was really worried about how much we would be able to see.
a quick camera test, once we found a spot, told me that there should be no problems, though, cos it zooms out from under the balcony anyways.

hubs went more to the side, but I wanted to be as center as possible, so through-out the night we coordinated who filmed what through hand gestures. I had tried to instruct hubs, but he has the memory of a plate so I knew he wasn't gonna remember once everything happened.
it was messy, but made for suspense until the concert finished and we could tell each other what we'd done.

the show started at around 8:15, and in the end, the balcony became the least of my problems.

as a whole I'm extremely grateful that some fans are able to take it to noona level and follow idols around and show the rest of us what we're missing out on, but experiencing first hand how some get their material actually pissed me off a little. not saying that goes for everyone of them, of course, but at least for the 6 right in front of me.
call me naive, but I thought they either toughed if out in the pit (let's not get into how that could go down again), or got front row seats, or stood back and just used their huge ginormous zoom lenses.
what I didn't expect was for them to bring in step stools, some up to ½m high, and just park themselves right in the middle of the crowd, completely blocking the view for everyone behind them.
I know y'all are tiny bishes, but that's just damn rude.
I dun care how popular your site is, we all payed good money to be able to see the boys, and even more so, this is such a rare opportunity for us while you see them all the time, so get the fuck down. please.

if that sounded annoyed it's cos I am. we might not have been crowded in the back, but that doesn't mean I could just stand where ever it fit with their big obstructing noona heads cos I actually cared if I blocked people's view.

anyway, as usual there won't be an actual concert play-by-play cos asking me to have that much sense during the concert to be able to remember enough for that, is asking too much.
I was in the presence of bias for god's sake.

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note: if you want, you can also read my thoughts on the London concert here cos even though I tried really hard to make a conscious effort to not compare and see Paris concert as a new, different show, there are some things I don't mention here, simply cos they didn't stand out in my mind cos not new this time around, but reading London post back a lot of it also applies here.

random thoughts about this and that.

Sunggyu. Sunggyu Sunggyu S U N G G Y U ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ _(:зゝ∠)_
he took my breath away every second just as much as in London, and when we had our final goodbye wave my heart was aching so much ㅠㅠ

there was such a big difference in the crowd between Paris and London. of course Paris crowd was smaller, but there were hardly any excessive pushing, and as far as I noticed, only a few people got pulled out.
there were lots of random chanting, and a lot more fanchants during the songs, and in general fans seemed more lively and in a good mood, and less crazy.
there were even organized different fan stuff, like, we all got light sticks handed out in the queue, and there were different banner projects. (maybe this was true for London, too, but I were never offered anything, and it wasn't visible during the concert.)
and I realize I probably just offended everyone who went to London, but not Paris, but that's just the feeling I had.

I was really happy about the light sticks (since there weren't any sold), but while I appreciate the thought behind it, I'm not crazy about the banners.
when it's not possible to get everyone to understand that it's not necessary to hold it up higher than your face for them to see, it just ends up blocking my view, and once again, I don't wanna miss a single second, not even for a banner. I'm selfish like that.
so because the floor was so flat, I had to use my camera to see most of "With...", and instead of being able to have that last moment to take them in and say bye, it just became a rather frustrating ending ㅠㅠ

I wonder what happened to Myungsoo's original bear..

YeoLLIE'S HAIR????!?! ?!? A BRAID WHY???!????? ??? ? ? o)--<

speaking of hair, Gyu..waved his hair, and while I like it just flat and smooth, I didn't actually realize until I came home to see my pics and videos.. guess hair matters less when he's right in front of me.

there were technical problems with the background screen, and they paused the show twice because of this, and turned on the house lights.
the first time was only shortly into the show, and it lasted maybe..I dunno, maybe 10 mins? the second time was a lot longer, and people were actually sitting/laying around in the back.
in the end I think it did have a slight effect on my..excitement momentum. of course there were no problem as soon as the boys were back on stage, but overall it's like everything else exciting that get's unexpectedly broken up.
besides, I wanted them to just turn the damn screen off, it messed so much with my camera.

the boys, as a whole, seemed in a better mood than in London. of course it's hard for Gyu, Dongwoo, and Hoya to be any happier than they were in London, but Yeollie and Jongie smiled so much more ♥

there were so much cheering when Yeollie sang his parts, and it gave me goosebumps. he sang so well in both London and Paris, and he should get more parts. the end.

if London seemed short, this concert seemed to just whizz by in the blink of an eye. I dunno if it's cos I knew the show this time, but.. ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ

some place deep in my heart, I had hoped they'd do She's Back and Request this time.

English parts of ments were the scripted stuff, but overall the ments were less so cos their Korean parts were more free and situation specific. or at least scripted for this particular concert.
downside was, that since the boys don't speak French, they did a lot of it in Korean, and then that got translated to French, instead of maybe doing something in English and have that translated to French.

there were less tears in Paris, both from the boys, but also on my end, at least from the ments. maybe cos I'd heard it all before, maybe cos I didn't understand 80% of it.
there were still plenty of performances that got me, though.

speaking of tears, someone said Gyu cried in Paris during "With...". not as far as I can see in my cam. he can touch his eyes and not be crying.

Howon moves too damn much to get decent pictures.
Dongwoo, too, though his main problem are derps omG.

Paradise and 너에게 간다 were definite highlights again.

getting shushed by both Myungpoo and Dongwoo was hilarious, mostly cos people weren't even that loud at the times?

I was laughing so hard during Howon's ending ment. he only got to "I say Ho" before everyone screamed "YOU SAY YAAA!!" and he was like, "lol bitches lemme do my part".

sweetie pie leader hitting Yeollie's back when he suddenly started coughing /drowns in GyuYeol these days??? ?

Howon was in such a good mood today.

like in London there wasn't any gross overuse of grease and aegyo.
or.. I dunno if they really did tone it down or if I was just too high to find it gross and annoying. there's a good chance it was the latter, but I actually think it was the former.

I stepped out of my heels literally the second the house lights came on, and as expected I couldn't move without screaming in agony, so we just stood there for a while while people shuffled to get out as fast as possible cos no one wants to get stuck at the end of a crowd like this.
however, our London experience had us also slightly waiting for a random casual clothing mini encore, and when only about a third of the floor people were left, there they suddenly were, all 7 of them!!!
we ran forward - yes by the magical power of Infinite my feet suddenly didn't hurt anymore - and got to say goodbye to them, really close up ㅠㅠ♥
pics came out kinda shaky cos it was so sudden and people were pushing, but that's okay. I got my moment.
hubs' video came out a little shaky, too, cos as he said, he felt it was more important to wave back to them than getting a steady video. how cute is that??!

김성뀨, 장동우, 남우횬, 이호원, 이성열, 김명수, 이성쫑 영원히 너~무 고마워 ㅠㅠ 앞으로도 계속 응원할께♥어제보다 오늘 더 사랑해♥

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if I look deranged it's cos I was, nothing was normal or okay in me at this point.

by 11:30 they were gone for good, and after having waited in line to get out, cos some brilliant unofficial sales people had parked them and their posters literally in the middle of the gate out, we hurried back to the hotel.
we had thought about getting dinner, but everything was closed by now, so we just got some chips and sodas from a teeny convenience store we happened to pass by.

we got checked in, ordered a wake-up call (since no charger for ipod cos I thought hubs had brought phone), and went up to the room.
it was the smallest elevator yet, oh my gOD, I've eaten sandwiches larger than this. and on that note, we exceeded the weight limit so we stood reeeeeally still..

pretty much the entire room.

toilet paper rolls are just stacked on the toilet brush handle cos there weren't any holder..

gonna skip right past the bathroom, sized "French" aka tiny, the smell of mildew it reaked of, the used band-aid, the useless wifi, the empty condom wrapper, and the rock-hard bed, which actually gave us the best sleep we've had in forever, and just say we looked through pics for a few hours and then went to sleep.
I only cried a little, go me.

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after the previous night's magic, Paris was back to its pumpkin self the next day.
cancelled trains (this time due to electrical problems, and not suicide), no info, only info in French, being stranded in god-knows-where for 45 mins before a bus finally managed to get us to Charles De Gaulle.
this time we spend almost 4 hours trying to get out of Paris and catch our plane in time, but we made it to the gate with a whopping 20 mins to spare woot.

thank god our lunch was chicken brochettes so we could scarf them down in two mins.

again there were a couple of tears during the flight and aisle guy hid behind his newspaper.

by now I know better than to be all enraged and go all "we'll never go to Paris again grrr!!!" cos kpop seems to love Paris, and if Infinite ever comes back, I'll be in Paris in a heartbeat. or however long French public transportation decides it should take me....

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afterthought. like I also talked about in my sidenote for London, for me, the most important thing- no the only important thing, when I go to spend all this money and face my fear of flying, is to be able to see the artists in person.
I've often talked to people about the whole filming thing cos most people see it as a sacrifice to be further back, or have to look as much on the camera screen as I do, and it's had me thinking.

I know I have a shitty memory, and stuff fade so fast for me, so my pictures and videos are important for me for that reason, but is that all?
and even though you learn to get better at watching the stage and your screen at the same time, it is that constant battle between the two cos I also wanna experience them with my own eyes.

hubs is much more steady and calm with a camera, which is why we got some really good shots in London, but when he saw how shaky my London cams were, he insisted he make some Gyu cams in Paris, and, hey, who was I to argue.

and watching the perfect cams he made of "너에게 간다", "그해여름", and "With...", it suddenly hit me. this is why I am so incessant about wanting good pics and cams.

being able to get that perfect, uninterrupted (minus a few light sticks and hands), up-close experience, I will n e v e r be able to get during the actual concert, 1) cos I can't be arsed, and 2) cos I'm slightly claustrophobic and I've done the whole intensive moshpit when I was younger, and it's not for me.
and 3) even if I didn't bring a camera and solely looked at the stage, I would never get the same joy and pleasure of seeing his face that close and all the little moves he makes, simply cos I have bad sight so I'd literally have to be in like, front or maybe 2nd row to even have a chance.

I understand everyone's different, but for me it doesn't matter that I'm "only" getting it through my videos, and not in person.
being there was plenty real, and my heart knows that this is my experience, and not some noona or other fan.

okay I dunno what I'm trying to say? this took a weird turn. the end.

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on to the good stuff.

we only made half as many cams in Paris as we did in London, simply cos I could live with some of the London ones, and I didn't need two copies of all VCRs and ments, and it would give me a chance to just watch the concert at times.
overall I think Paris cams turned out a little better, though cos it was fresh in my mind what zooming too much in on ~~Gyu~~ them would do. too bad we made a lot more cams in London, but hey, what are you gonna do ┐('～`)┌
but do check out London post, too.

I'm Gyu biased, but I do love all of ot7, so for a lot of the cams, even though I might have zoomed in on Gyu from time to time, I will still call it "Infinite" if it's mainly so.
and since these cams are made for me, "Infinite" doesn't necessarily mean there's ot7 in the shot at all times, it just means it's not only Gyu basically, cos I like to see members closer than an ot7 shot.

it was confirmed that hubs is a better photographer under these lighting circumstances than me as well, cos while he was busy doing great videos I was busy taking pictures, and in the end we deleted nearly 400 out of our almost 1000 pictures.

camera still doesn't like red/blue lighting, and it still prefers to focus on the big screen for the most part.

like for London, I have watermarked my pics differently this time, simply because I would like credit for the few pics I imagine you might find good enough to spread around. if that makes me sound big-headed, well.
so while I did consider every location individually, I did also put them in the shot, and not just in the bottom right-hand corner as usual, cos I didn't want to make it too easy for the idiots who like to crop credits out. I'm sorry if it ruins the pictures for you :/
you're always welcome to contact me to ask for pics with the watermark in a less obvious place if you need it for something specific, like wallpaper, or if you'd like me to make you a cropped version of something.

and as usual you can click any image to view full size.

edit: the only reason this post wasn't up sooner is because we've spent the past two weeks trying to get youtube to not completely fuck up the quality of the cams whenever there's the big screen in the back, but this is as good as I can get it. I'm sorry T___T
trust me, no one is more upset about it than me.
but if you watch a cam that doesn't have that much big screen in the shot, you can see what they were all suppose to look like.

besides that it's the usual drill.

please, DO NOT RE-UPLOAD my cams without my permission, but feel free to spread my youtube links around, preferably with a "do not re-up" note.
and DO NOT crop, edit, gif, vine, or whatever else you can think of that would alter my original material.

as far as the pictures are concerned, feel free to share if you find them good enough for that, but DO NOT crop my watermark, DO NOT edit, and please re-up in full size. please credit.

other than that I hope you enjoy, and as usual, thank you if you actually read through this entire post ♥

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1: Sunggyu - Paradise
my. g o d.

2: Infinite - French/Eng intro ment
Dongwoo LOL

3: Infinite - Inception

4: Infinite - French/Eng ment

5: Sunggyu - 너에게 간다
ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

6: Sunggyu - 그해여름
규ㅣ엽당ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ♥

7: Sunggyu - 60초
ㅠㅠ♥

8: Sunggyu - 엄마

9: Sunggyu - 그리움이 닿는 곳에

10: Infinite - Nothing's Over

11: Infinite - Cover Girl
SO MUCH CUTE

12: Infinite - 내꺼하자
♥

13: Infinite - BTD

14: Sunggyu - Man In Love

15: Sunggyu - 추격자
big fat noona head.. ㅠㅠ

16: Infinite - 다시 돌아와

17: Infinite - French trans ending ment
나도 인피닛 항상 샤릉해ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ♥♥♥

18: Sunggyu - With...
수고했어용♥

19: Infinite - encore
casual clothes Infinite ♥

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note: this is somewhat Gyu biased. consider yourself warned. though less so than London...I think?

헐...

baby, I'm sorry... ㅋㅋ

Щ(ºДºщ)

my two derps ♥

Jongie's so pretty even if I did miss his light pink hair from London.

❤
dunno how Gyu ended up being called hamster cos no one has more hamster cheeks than Namu

ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ❤

LOL what is your face xD

everyone's so into it ..and then there's Myungpoo LOL I swear this kid ide..

애긔ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ

1st technical breakdown

I know a lot of the Dongwoo pics are blurry, but his facial expressions are priceless :'D

2nd technical breakdown, and while people were just sitting and even laying around, the noonas spend the time tweeting preview pics.

wheezing cos his brAID

열아ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ고마웡 ( ˘ ³˘) ♥

Gyu pie ♡

lol the bear fell off the bench when he got up

(◦˘⌣˘◦)εˇ )

ㅠㅠㅠ

he then went upstairs, so, yeah..

he spent a long time getting up there for some reason, so instead of going back down to the stage for the end, he just stayed up there and finished his solo.