We mostly love the Paris Metro. It was the very first public transit system I’d ever learned—my parents took me on it when I was perhaps thirteen. At the time, there was some French advertisement campaign going on which featured huge posters of this skinny French model, completely topless, busting out absolutely everywhere. So on the train, at every single stop, you couldn’t help but see twenty or thirty posters of her, absolutely all over the place. It was a bit like a “Got Milk?” campaign from Wisconsin, but done up in French-style. As an innocent thirteen-year-old American kid, I, um, hadn’t exactly seen this sort of “advertisement” before, but hell yeah I was instantly a HUGE fan of the Metro, it was love at first sight!
Twenty years later, our young family began to visit France, and of course the only way to flit about Paris was via the Metro, and when you have two boys, perhaps five and three at the beginning, what could be better than tunnels and trains!!
Back in those days, there were no safety or security walls, you could literally walk to the edge of the platform, stick your head our, and look up and down the tracks as far as you could see. On Metro Line 1, under the Rue du Rivoli and perfectly straight, you could usually see at least four or five stations away—the tunnel itself was completely dark, but you could make out small lighted areas, each of which were the various stops along the line.
This view down the tunnels absolutely thrilled the young boys, especially when you could see a train approaching—or leaving, they didn’t much care which, it was just so much fun to see the stations, the trains, and our youngest always made it a point to wave at the bored engineer at the front of every train.
Nowadays they have built annoying barriers everywhere, so there is no chance to stick your head out and see perhaps miles down the track, past who knows how many stations. It’s a shame, I miss the old “open” Metro lines of years past.
But at the end of the day, I still have to say I love and admire the Paris Metro so much, always get a kick out of riding it.
The rabbit thing I still don’t get… we saw them all over the Japan subways, still not sure what that’s about lol https://worldpete.blog/final-japan-2023-post/
But getting back to food, here’s a before and after pic of dessert—I’ll leave it to the reader to figure out which pic is which 😀
In any evert, it’s been a terrific day and a fulfilling evening, and we just want to take the Metro back down to the Brighton and get some rest
Apparently the payment system suddenly stopped working, and as luck would have it, it conked out just after I went through, so obviously just *before* Sam made it through!
OMG we are dying laughing, nothing could be more French!! We are actually in tears, this is so typically French!!
She struggled with the machines, which unfortunately are also French 😂😂 Every single machine in the Metro seems to really not want us to actually ride the Metro!
The Service Lady is VERY French: she says she can’t possibly help because she doesn’t accept cash!!! #French
I am reaching the end of my tether at this point, I mean it was really funny for a while but now I’ve timed out: seriously, a tourist is brandishing cash, all she wants is an easy subway ride, and the Metro person says she can’t help!! All she has to do is spit out a generic 2-Euro ticket. What is the point of this person: if she can’t help us out, who the hell *can* she help I wonder?? We’re waving money around, just cough up a fucking ticket!!! Why is this so impossible: very frustrating!
Sam called me away at this point, worried I was becoming “ugly.” (We’re still on opposite sides of the ticket gate mind you :-D) So we cooled off, returned to the turnstiles and tried randomly swiping our tickets again just for the hell of it—then it decided suddenly to work again lol #French
So after all our trials & tribulations, here we are headed home on the Metro once again!! Everyone seems thrilled lol
And in no time at all we’re back at the Hotel Brighton, very much ready for some shut-eye
And so we finally fell asleep watching Harry Potter III on (French) TV lol
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