Public Transportation, the Bane of my Existence

Special note: This blog may not be appropriate for those who worry about my late at night decision making, but don't worry, I promise I was totally responsible.

The metro. I'm not a huge fan of New York's dirty subway. I don't particularly love the grumpy faces and the "Excuse me, is that your bag" announcements on the DC metro. I found London's tube hugely expensive and the bombing of it the day after I arrived three years ago to be a bit of a repellent. So I didn't expect to love Paris's metro system. I was right.

I understand that there are rats in cities, especially in underground railroad systems. I have only seen a rat twice in DC and never in New York, but never in the metro, ten feet away from me.

There I was, innocently sitting on a bench, waiting for the metro to arrive after leaving a very cool jazz bar. All of a sudden the woman next to gasped and said something that sounded alarmingly close to rat. I turned to where her outstretched arm was pointing, and lo and behold, there was a rat, scurrying it's little way across the floor. I leapt up, screamed bloody murder, and the rat went right back into his little wall hole. I then realized the entire metro station had gone quiet and was staring at me. Rule One of being in Paris according to my AIFS program: Don't make a scene and exaggerate the already obvious fact that you are an American. Oops.

Anyway, that was metro scenario number one. Here is metro scenario number two.

Saturday night I went out with Little Texas. Around 2 the bar we were at was closing and my friend and I decided to go home rather than wander the streets trying to find another bar. On Friday and Saturday nights, the metro closes between 1:45 and 2:30. In my desire not to take a cab, I convinced my friend to risk taking the metro with me. We made it onto the first train and felt victorious. However, when we got off at another stop to change trains, the sad truth settled in. We had missed the last train to my metro stop. I overheard some people speaking English and asked them if they knew where to get a cab. They (an Indian guy, and Australian guy, and a French girl) said they were going to the same metro stop as we were and we agreed to all walk together.

So we began our journey out of the metro station. We went through the turnstiles to find the stairs gated off. I jumped back over the turnstile but my poor short little friend just couldn't make it over. So the large Australian man had to lift her up over the turnstile. We finally found an exit that was still open and made it out of the metro. A twenty minute walk later we left the Indian, Australian, and Frenchy behind and made it up to my apartment, all in tact.

In summary: I will be avoiding the metro as much as possible.