transportation

I can’t speak French. Everyone told me it was no big deal, that everybody in Paris speaks English. Well, most of them do. But they don’t like to.
Luckily for me, there were some people in the study abroad program that did speak French very well, and they were invaluable assets to my trip. Both my sister and I were taking a basic conversational French class while we were there, but it was not nearly enough to get around. Probably one of the most frustrating and difficult things we had to do was buy tickets for the Metro and for a train, because of the language barrier and of course, the fact that we were Americans. I am very rarely a minority, so this was a whole new situation for me.
The first time we tried to buy tickets for the Metro, we were absolutely forbidden to use 3 euros to pay for a trip costing 2.80 euros. Apparently, exact change was the only way to obtain a ticket. After figuring that out, there was the actual Metro ride. Now, I have ridden the subway in Washington D.C. and in New York City, but the French Metro is in a category all its own. Of course one must take into consideration the sheer size of Paris, which means there are roughly 13 lines running in all directions all over the city.
But no matter what time of day, because it is the main method of transportation in France, the cars are usually packed with the French and their dogs (which have priority over Americans). This makes for Metro rides that are uncomfortable, to say the least. But despite the amount of perspiration that constantly clung to our foreign skin, the French never seemed to sweat. They also never ever wear shorts, even in the middle of a record-breaking heat wave.
Joey Bazler, a junior at Bellarmine University, commented on an the unexpected difference between France and the United States: “The accessibility of the entire city...everything was no more than a 15-minute walk or Metro ride away.”

ParisMetro

Attempting to buy train tickets was another challenge. My sister and I relied on the language skills of our fellow classmates, but it was not so easy even for them.


My own personal shining moment was when seven of us decided to venture out on our own one weekend to Italy. We arrived in Venice after taking a couchette (an overnight train) from Paris. We were five hours late because of a storm, and then we had to figure out whether we were in the right station (there are two in Venice). Once we checked our tickets and tried, unsuccessfully, to communicate with some Italians on the train, we realized that we were in the right place and we needed to get off. Unfortunately, the train had already started pulling out of the station when only half of our group had managed to get onto the platform. My sister jumped out when it began to move, and by the time it was my turn, the train had picked up some speed. Now, being the risk-taking, fearless adventurer I am, I flung myself onto the platform without a second thought. All I knew was that I could not get separated from my sister, and if jumping out of a moving train and rolling down the platform was the only way to ensure that we would stick together then I was willing to be James Bond for the moment. Of course I paid for it with some bumps and bruises, but it was worth the looks on the faces of the Italians on the platform, gazing with wonder at the crazy American leaping from the rapidly departing train.