The Metro & Me

Paris is a city full of objectively beautiful things, intricate architecture is everywhere: museums sure, but also cafes, grocery stores, and apartment buildings. Art is all over: objects, people, and buildings all seem to compete with one another to be the loveliest thing you see that day. Paris is beautiful, but what I’m interested in is how you get there. To get to any of these things you have to take the metro, which isn’t beautiful on first glance, you have to squint a little to see it.

I grew up in a fairly rural place, so I’m not really used to metro systems. The school bus was the only public transportation I ever used regularly. I’ve taken subways when visiting larger cities but they’ve always seemed intimidating to me, not something I could imagine doing every day. But in Paris the metro is a necessity, wether you’re on your way to class or for an afternoon at the Louvre, you take the metro. 

At first the metro and I didn’t exactly get along. My first day in Paris I attempted to beat the jetlag and explored the city at full speed despite the fact that I hadn’t slept in almost 48 hours. (If, like me, you can’t sleep on planes, I would not recommend this all nighter technique, I saw a lot my first day but I barely remember it and wasn’t really in a headspace to enjoy it. Learn from my mistakes dear reader, go to bed) Anyway, I eventually gave up on my quest to establish a normal sleeping pattern and decided to head home. Of course my friend and I immediately got lost. I let her lead, not trusting my sleepy brain to make decisions, I blindly followed and when I looked up I discovered we had gone about 20 minutes in the wrong direction. 

This is a mistake everyone makes at least once, right train, wrong way. I’m sure there’s a metaphor somewhere in there if you’re into that sort of thing. I mentally cursed the metro for keeping me trapped in this endless day an hour longer. When we eventually got home I had no idea how I was going to deal with public transit for 4 months. I was sure that by the end of the semester I would have “Je Deteste Le Metro” tattooed somewhere on my body. I was constantly scared of pickpockets, I kept my bag awkwardly stuffed inside my coat and was constantly on high alert. In addition to being anxiety inducing, it seemed so ugly, especially compared to all the other beautiful things I was seeing. It was often crowded, always smelled weird, and I never quite got the image of one woman clipping her nails on the train out of my mind. 

However I’m happy to announce that over the course of the past two weeks the metro system and I have reached a truce. I don’t mind my train ride so much anymore and some days I really like it. The whole city is at my fingertips, my metro pass can take me anywhere within or just outside the city. I’ve memorized my route to class and haven’t gotten lost since that first day. Passing the Eiffel Tower on the 6 train each morning truly never gets old. I met an adorable dog on one train ride and made the acquaintance of a man playing “la bamba” on piano horn on another, the people watching is always great, I never have to find a place to park or deal with traffic. It’s true it can be claustrophobic and unpredictable but it’s also full of people with their own journeys and destinations that I’d never otherwise run into. I have a tiny part the story of everyone I cross paths with. It never looks quite the same, I get to see it during morning rush hour and in it’s quiet haze at 1 AM. So despite our rocky start, I’m finding beauty in that. The metro may look a little dingy on first glance but it’s a part of my study abroad experience as much as every beautiful thing in Paris. Knowing that I can go anywhere I want and that I can handle things that were hard at first makes for a pretty good view.