Incroyable!

I can’t believe how quickly the time is passing here.  Only one more week to go before I head back to LA, yet it seems that I just arrived.  Wow, what a ride!   I’m just trying to savor every moment and enjoy the beauty that unfolds before me every day.   Sometimes there just doesn’t seem to be enough adjectives in either language to describe the magnificence of this city.  I mean how many times can you say  incroyabe, extraordinaire, magnifique, formidable, genial, chouette, without sounding so ordinary. Therefore, if everything is so, all of the above, is there anything that is actually just ordinary?

OK, there are a few things that are, hmm... shall we say, tedious. For example, the metro at 830am Monday through Friday. Oh la la! It reminds me of my days in the Ivory Coast except that it doesn't smell as bad, and it's definitely not as hot.  Boarding the metro during rush hour is neither for the light hearted nor the shy.  It's more like push, push, push, until your face is smashed up against the window.  Then you try and hold on to the rail, but  there are about 5 people between you and the end of your arm.  So you just stand there. The train moves and you realize that you don't even need to hold on because no one can move anyway.  We all support each other during the bumpy ride, and no one falls. Kind of a metaphor for life, I suppose.  Except that sometimes it's a bit challenging to breath, but "le voila" another metaphor.  It's quite a ride, literally. Then I have to change trains and do it all over again. By the time I get to class, I feel like I've been in some kind of school yard brawl.  Ah, but I'll take it over the 405 any day. Well, most days.

Then there's the torture, I mean, joy of French grammar, comprehension, news reviews, and constantly being corrected for tense misuse.  It's almost like starting over.  All my bad habits are being purged, a purification of sorts.  And you know how much fun that is.  But hopefully with a cleaner palate, I'll be able to express myself a little more clearly in the near future. 

It's been an awesome week, but I don' think I've been this exhausted in years. Perhaps it has something to do with going to a 5 1/2 hour opera after class on Tuesday.  Wagner's Tristan et Isolde with Bill Viola video.  It was an, I don't have the adjective to describe, experience.

Finally, I've attached a few pictures from my day at the Rodin Museum yesterday. Also one of those...experiences. Enjoy.