Sound bites. That's the word of the semester. Les gouts de son. There is no more exciting place to sample gouts de son than the metro.

There is always the metro. In search of a place, a person, a thing, the metro will take you there, will supply you with what you need. It is the backbone of the city. A dirty, rancid, jumbled, living, breathing skeleton, or better blood vessels. They take you into the city, they take you out of the city.

It is the elevated in Chicago and the subway of New York but it is not. It is something else. I can't describe it, you have to be here, experience it, feel it. It is one with the city.

Sound bites here, sound bites there. A roaming musician steps into the car and grates away on a violin and somehow it works, somehow it fits the moment, he'll never play with an orchestra but on this stage he's perfect. An Italian tour group bursts forth onto the train at Pasteur and a duo strikes up an operatized French folk song. Despite the silence of everone else in the car, it fits. Maybe because they're Italian. Maybe because the Metro takes them, uses them, and then discards them as it does everyone else. "Mesdemoiselles," goads the older of the two, no doubt at my friend and I. "Mesdemoiselles! Mesdemoiselles!" And he launches into another operatic rendition. My friend and I exit giggling.

The best sound bites are the sounds of the train. Line one down the Champs-Elysees screams like bad horror film sound effects as it pulls into a station. In case you weren't sure we were braking, WE ARE. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEGH! The doors slide open and fresh meat steps in. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. Doors whoosh shut and off we go. The exchange is so quintessentially French. There is no cheerful 'Doors Closing' woman to remind us all doors must eventually close. There is just a drone. Then WHOOSH. And you'd better be paying attention. Those doors move fast.

And then there is the accordion. Oh, the accordion. Most are irritated by it. I find it soothing. For some reason it makes me whistle Edith Piaf tunes, hum, sing, and otherwise hold them in my mind the whole day through. What could be better in Paris?

Cheap shopping. That's what's better in Paris. And, having just gotten off cheaper than if I'd been wearing a mask and waving a gun, it's time to be off again, spurred on by my successes, like the great Conquerors of the empires of old.

And so I say to you au revoir, a tout a l'heure, et tout ca.