An Underground World

To the average tourist, like me, the hustle and bustle of the French lifestyle can be overwhelming at first. Foot traffic is everywhere, and people whizz by speaking rapidly in foreign languages that are not easily distinguishable. Automobiles are not popular above ground, but in its place exists an entirely different world underground.

Below the congested city of Paris lies the metropolitan, a complicated bus system that can be navigated by maps consisting of lines of different colors that represent buses that take people to various places. Upon arriving to Paris, France on the fast speed train from Mets, we were immediately thrust into this crazy underground world. We went to the tourist information desk first thing and were told to take line 2 to line 4 and get off at Place de Clichy. To us, it sounded like the man was speaking a foreign language, ‘the metro language’, but to him he was simply trying to help us find our way to Hotel Darcet. The metropolitan existed as early as 1845, but the first line was not completed until July 1900. Since then the metro has become one of the main means of transportation in Paris and the various colored lines on maps are just a way of life for those that live in this beautiful city. In fact, this transportation system is seen as a model of efficient public transportation. The metropolitan consists of 14 lines, 300 stations, and over 3,500 cars. It is said that every building in Paris is within 500 meters of a metropolitan and from my experience this weekend this holds true. Our hotel was a mere two minute walk from the station and anywhere we needed to go we could get to via connecting metro trains. Sometimes, like in our trip to the Louvre, it was a one stop shot on Line 1, but other times, we had to take as many as 3 connecting buses to reach our final destination.

Upon jumping onto the train station for the first time, I found myself extremely overwhelmed. A few of the people I was with were instant naturals at navigating the various colored lines of the buses, while others just sat there helplessly waiting for others to figure it out for them. I found myself in the middle. Sometimes I was able to quickly decipher where we were headed and how we needed to get there and other times the environment around me was too overwhelming for me to concentrate. The underground atmosphere was filled with scents of body odor and old perfume that made my nose wrinkle, hundreds of people dashing from one line to another that moved faster than I could blink, and dirty railings that forced me to keep my hands in my pockets. To some, this underground world created natural boundaries that helped people easily get from one place to another. To me, it was an unknown confusing world that left me feeling less confident than my usual self.

After a few minutes of waiting, the horn blew and the metro came to a screeching stop. Instantaneously, herds of people started pouring in and out of the various sliding doors. People pushed and shoved to get to where they needed to be before the doors closed and as soon as they did I felt trapped. People were standing shoulder to shoulder on all sides of me and I could barely see my feet, let alone try and protect my belongings from being taken from me. This is the first time I realized how overpopulated Paris truly is. Since 2005, inequality in France has been evident, especially in Paris. The 11.7 million inhabitants form one of Europe’s largest metropolitan areas, but (http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2010/01/19/paris-officials-push-huge-suburban-transit-investment-to-increase-metropolitan-mobility/) much of the population lives hours away from the city center via public transportation. This fact, along with many others, is one of the main reasons why so many people are forced to take public transportation and why the metropolitan world underground seems to be a territory of its own.

After our first time navigating the city alone we realized that the metropolitan in France truly can be considered a model of efficient public transportation. We were able to find our way the entire weekend without getting lost. Surprising, right? We thought so, too, but we learned quickly that as long as you know where you are, where you’re going, and how to read the map then travelling shouldn’t be hard. This is easier than it sounds. For our first trip, we decided that we would meet our friends at the Louvre at 10:00 sharp. To make this happen we decided to leave at 9:15 which gave us plenty of time to figure out where we were going without getting overwhelmed. To get there, we had to take line 1, which I learned after some research was the first line completed and has been called line 1 ever since. The line used to run from Porte de Vincennes to Porte Maillot but has since been extended to run from Château de Vincennes to La Défense, which is what we used it for on our first trip. (http://www.discoverfrance.net/France/Paris/Paris_metro.shtml ) .

After leaving Paris, I now feel confident about navigating the metropolitan world and would willingly accept the challenge to take on the fast paced, claustrophobic lifestyle that exists under the streets of France.