An uneventful week

This past week and a half I have had the flu, and Jess as well, although hers was a lighter case. Since not much has happened, I thought I would talk about the metro system here in Paris.

Classes have been going well so far. Much too early for my taste, especially with the metro ride to get to school in the morning. Tomorrow there might be a transit strike, so even earlier to rise, wahoo.

Getting to school usually involves getting up at seven, getting ready and then hoping on the metro. The Paris metro has some charms. There are long walkways reminiscent of those that can be found in the London Underground. Paneled with white ceramic bricks, the underground labyrinth with so many people marching somewhere reminds me much more of New York’s system than that of DC. But unlike New York’s, the metro here is clean. That cleanliness is not accomplished at the expense of an overbearing security force that arrests pregnant women for finishing a granola bar like in DC; there are even vending machines in some stations here. The only issue I have with the metro here on the cleanliness front is that there is one stretch of tunnel at the Remeau-Sebastopol station (where I change trains) that smells of stale urine. I guess one of the denizens of that station can’t be bothered to go outside and find facilities.

But despite the homeless in the metro (there are actually far fewer homeless in Paris than in DC), there have not been the kind of ‘crazy’ encounters here as back home. One of the more memorable anecdotes so far happened on an evening when Jess and I were going to some event with Jess’ school friends. There was this guy that I was out of the corner of my eye putting what looked like a nylon stocking on his head. I of course thought that something bad was about to happen. I haven’t seen people become physically aggressive on the metro before, but the guy singing about how he wanted to shoot everyone who worked for the government came close. But, I digress, this guy actually turned out to be even less harmful than the enthusiastic young LaRoushies we ran across in DC. He was actually performing a scene from a play by Moliere – the white nylon beanie was a part of his costume. He wasn’t even fishing for money, just wanted to put on a performance and encourage us to buy tickets to the full-length show; I don’t quite think we are in DC anymore.

The trains themselves are a nice ride, they actually run on what appear to be rubber tires; at least some of them do, which is odd in its own right. The cars are oddly proportioned. There are seating sections in between the, let’s call them foyers. These foyers in front of the doors have seats that can fold down if there is room, but more often than not, there is no such room, so everyone stands packed into this small area in front of the door desperately trying to grasp one of the two poles available to be held onto. The idea of overhead rails like those found on the cars in DC or New York has not caught on as of yet. Conversely, the seating sections I mentioned earlier only have the seated passengers and so are quite roomy even when the rest of the train is cramped well beyond comfort. There is just not enough room to stand between the seats nor anything to grab onto; in an odd layout.

But in the end, everything else is perhaps compensated for by a metro stop that we rarely ever pass. There is a stop near the Louvre that has a small collection of some artifacts drawn from that museum’s collection. This is not a completely innovative idea, but still one of the most charmingly mundane aspects of this city that we both find ourselves taking for granted, but occasionally amazed by nonetheless.