School Registration...

... is not a one-stop shopping experience here. Today I stood in line for an hour and a half basically to pay my registration fee. I go to a different (third) location tomorrow for my written exam to determine which grammar level I will be assigned to, and then on the 13th of February I will take the phonetics exam (basically an oral pronunciation test, I think).





While in line I met a girl from Seattle who was staying in a hotel while she looked for a place to live. I can't imagine moving here without knowing where I was going to live. Or having to lug my crap all over Paris twice beore settling in. I also met a guy from London who was here at the request of the Red Cross to improve his French. He had just spent six months in Jorda. How cool is that? I wanted to ask if he had gone to Petra, but we started talking about something else. Petra is one place I would like to go before I die. How amazing. (For those of you who don't know what Petra is and won't follow the link I posted, it is the cool city carved out of the red rock that is in the Indiana Jones and the "Last" Crusade movie.)



But, as Jessica would say, "That's neither here nor there."

Because I knew there would be a bit of a wait, I stopped at a bookstore across the street and bought a couple of books to keep me company. I started reading one while in line. It's a play called "Parle-moi d'amour." A direct translation would be "Talk to Me About Love." It's interesting so far... the whole premise is a married couple who aren't happy in their marriage having this big blow-up fight where they air all of their frustrations. It's supposed to examine relations between men and women in modern society. We'll see.

So, this is my school.

Nice, huh?

This is a little statue of a big-time smartie across the street (with a little park and the Cluny in the background).

The inscription says (basically):

"Paris has had my heart from my infancy. I am not French but by this city, which is inurpassable and incomparable in its variety. The glory of France is one of the most noble adornments in the world (or of the world)."

Amen, Montaigne. Amen.

I'm trying to decide if it's the tourists who rub his feet hoping to come back to Paris (like the Trevi Fountain in Rome), or if it's students who are hoping some of his brilliance will "rub" off on them before they write their big essay tests. (Ha. I'm hilarious, I know. Don't hate me.)

In the little park behind Montaigne I took this. It's amazing how gorgeous sculptures can fall into disrepair becuase there are so many that this is "just another" among hundreds.

And this is the back of the Cluny Museum.

I love the building, and it's actually a really interesting museum full of artifacts from the Middle Ages. I think I'm going to buy a 5-day museum pass next week and go on a musem blitz of the city. I'll definitely be visiting the Cluny.