Forget Sartre, Tocqueville and Napoleon. The Metro is what I have learned best while abroad in Paris. No dead Frenchman can help my daily life like the mass transit system does. Even those stiffs with stops named after them, like Victor Hugo, Voltaire and Alexandre Dumas, are too far out of my usual path to be of use.
For the hefty price of roughly 270 Euros, I have a yearlong, unlimited-use pass that I take out and swipe over a scanner (it can even be detected through my bag). A distant relative of D.C.’s SmartTrip pass, this piece of plastic is essential to feeling like a resident.
In addition to being very practical, the Metro offers amusement in various forms. First, many of the less central stops have creative names. Historical figure-themed stops aside, there are endearing ones like “Bonne Nouvelle” (good news) and “Ga?t?” (happiness), and a Rocky Horror-esque “Magenta.” The curious “Stalingrad” would be an anachronism were it not named for a World War II battle.
As for the stops themselves, many of them have artistic interiors that make waiting for the next car more interesting. There is the copper submarine style of “Arts et M?tiers,” which offers homage to Jules Verne, and the hieroglyphics in “Pyramides.” The red-yellow-black-white of “Assembl? Nationale” reminds me of an iPod advertisement. My favorite stop is “Concorde,” for its crossword puzzle effect, where each white tile features a letter or punctuation mark, the entirety of which spells out the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
After spending so much time underground, I’ve become borderline obsessed with the Metro. I try not to use my Metro-map pen when I’m wearing my Metro-map watch, though. A friend of mine afflicted with a similar malady keeps a small, well-creased Metro map in her pocket, with the goal of exiting at every stop before she leaves Paris in June.
Packed subway cars at rush hour are unpleasant in any city, and the odor of certain Parisians makes things worse, but you will find some fascinating people. I love discreetly observing the other passengers when not guarding my bag or reaching for the pole amid a crush of people. There’s always someone who grabs my attention: a strange outfit, an oddly shaped nose, or an interesting choice of book to read en route.
There is no shortage of accordion players or scruffy, unemployed men pleading for money or a job. My favorite performer is an old woman with long gray hair who must be less than five feet tall. While sporting a yellow bandana Boy Scout-style around her neck, pants hiked up around her middle and a kid’s backpack with a picture of a bug-eyed rabbit, she bobs and twirls down the car’s central aisle, singing what sounds like a Russian folk tune.
The notable personalities include two 10-year-olds rapping Jay-Z in broken English, a man playing a strange flute/recorder combination who yelps much too loudly, and a gray mop topped septuagenarian puffing into a saxophone. Each performer must have a permit, and the overly serious police occasionally make an appearance to check that everyone’s papers are in order.
Another category of traveler you can’t avoid is “pet owner.” The animals brought inside are not limited to small dogs, although those are the most common. The buses say that you can bring one aboard if it fits into your bag, and offer an informative illustration ? la Legally Blonde. The most interesting animals that I have seen in the Parisian Metro are a rabbit on a leash and, believe it or not, an injured domesticated rat.
There are always drunk and crazy people in the Metro, but the rat owner takes the cake for creepiness. Hunched forward, she clutched a bloody tissue in her hand, while her hair hung down like in a messy blonde curtain in front of her face. In her lap sprawled the fat brown and white-spotted vermin, whose leg bled steadily. She kept looking up and glaring at her friend next to her, hissing at him that her pet was dying.
Unsavory rat encounters aside, I love the Metro for its lively atmosphere, daily fashion shows and generally sub par, if sincere, performing artists. The walkways might often reek of urine, but the people never fail to entertain. What was first an undistinguishable jumble of colorful lines on a map has become a daily source of entertainment, and I feel I know the city best when I’m navigating.
