Eurostar

Do you know that adorable comedian Dimitri Martin?    He did a short riff once on flying in an airplane, which I (the quintessential hate-to-fly person) loved.  He was wondering at people who cvetch about flying.  He pointed out that essentially you sit in an easy chair, ascend 30,000 feet into the air, glide along for awhile, and when you land, you're in a whole different far away place!  What could be more amazing than that!?

 He captures with his humor the very thing that Routine squelches:  the absolutely marvelous truth about what has, to us, become so ordinary.

 That's what I find fun about being forced to think and communicate in a foreign language.  Ordinary sentences become new again, and often reflect a foreigner's way of perceiving from a different angle.  Like Dmitri's airplane journey:  not a pain-in-the-ass, but something quite magical.

 I boarded the Eurostar (don't you love the name of that train?) at 10:25 this morning, and it glided along like an Olympic gold-medalist on ice, making its way to Paris beneath the English Channel.   I was busy reading, so didn't notice how long we were in the tunnel.   Quite some time.

 Then, suddenly we were spewed out into daylight!

 That's what it felt like -- cannon-balled into the French countryside.  Only moments ago we'd been in England!

About fifteen minutes afterwards the young French guy asleep in the seat next to mine opened his eyes and said, "I've been asleep.  Are we in France?"

 I nodded, and he beamed.

 Presto, we were in France.