Paris Metro

When I first moved here I vowed to find ways to avoid using Paris' underground transportation system, known here as the Metro. Subways have always reminded me of those ant farms some kids had when I was younger, hundreds of tiny creatures moving from one place to another through a series of tunnels. I really detested the idea of joining the swarms of people crammed into the train cars that carried them to unknown destinations. But low and behold, the time constraints of waiting for a bus, transferring several times and then additional walking to reach a place, have helped me to form a new attitude about "taking the metro." So, every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings, plus many other times during any given week, I join others coming from every direction as I rush to get to school. I take the line #1 from the Bastille three stops to Chatelet, one of the busiest stations in the heart of Paris, transfer there to the line #4 in the direction of Porte d'Orleans to the Alesia station. Here I walk or catch a bus to the international school run by the city government of Paris. After class I reverse myself and return home by 1:30 to eat lunch.

I always think of the subway as a whole other city that exits directly below the Parisian streets so famous the world over. First of all, there are constantly thousands of people down there buzzing from one location to another. One can shop for many of the same things that can be found above ground. Larger stations always have fresh produce and fast food places, as well as magazine/newspaper stalls, but you can also find jewelry, camera, phone, clothing and other types of shops. The smells in the subway also mimic the exterior world where you can cross into neighborhoods where fresh bread is baking or beer is being brewed, however, with a great amount of difference between the types of smells above/down below. The strongest. and one no one forgets, is the ubiquitous smell of urine. At first, I used to ask the question, who pees in here so much? Until one day I saw a man with his dog (oh and the French do love their dogs who accompany them everywhere) and the dog was lifting his leg right on the wall of the platform where I was waiting for the train. But the most memorial afternoon was when Gabriella and I had just entered a station to catch a train back to our apartment and we noticed a very tall young man facing the wall of the tunnel. As we got closer we noticed he was holding his "thing" and peeing into the little trough that borders both sides of most tunnel walkways. As each person would pass him, he would look directly at him/her and say "Désolé!" (Sorry!) Well, you certainly can't fault the French for being overly polite! After those episodes, I stopped wondering where the pee smells came from.

There are always tons of surprises in the subway and those can either interest or amuse you or make you question reality itself. It's home to many homeless people, some of whom are mentally unstable, some of whom are alcoholic, or some of whom are just down on their luck. There are beggars who sit in certain locations day-after-day with their hands out and they become as familiar as the posters that line the walls advertising exhibits, movies events, stores, etc. Most people don't talk to each other in the metro, sort of like the quiet moments we experience in elevators with the strangers who cram in with us. One can always hear groups traveling together because they do talk to each other, mostly loud and a lot in English. But there are moments of stranger-to-stranger interactions, mostly when someone offers another his/her seat or a woman needs help getting her baby carriage up the steps. My favorite people in the subway are the many musicians who either set up in certain locations like big intersections or at the end of long hallways or the ones who directly board a car to play a few tunes between stops. One can hear any type of music from classical to hiphop but I've notice that the majority of music is traditional and comes from all over the world. The sound of these musicians never fails to lift my spirits or to brighten the drab subway environment so I always try to keep coins in my pocket to drop in their boxes, hats, cups, instrument cases or other creative containers for these are truly hard working do-gooders.

It's quite liberating to live without a car, especially in a place where traffic is always jammed, where vehicles disregard the lines that separate lanes, where everyone is in a hurry, where most streets end at round-a-bouts making logical navigation impossible, and where motorcycles constantly squeeze between lanes to get ahead of the line. One of these days, I'll describe what it's like to ride my bike in Paris, which I do often.