How Does the Metro Work Anyway?

Well I walked down the nearly-deserted street and wandered into a bustling intersection, a veritable hub of civilization. 

There must be a Metro around here somewhere. I wandered here and meandered there, constantly reaching for my dead-as-a-doornail Android which had no WiFi connection anyway, out of habit. Constantly living with all of the information in the world instantly available at your fingertips makes everything so easy that living without it suddenly becomes so difficult. And then I feel like a brat because some girls don't get to go to school or have to walk seven miles uphill just to get clean water. 

Anyway.

I circle around the rather fabulous entrance to Gare St. Lazare and wander down a street, whose name I don't know, praying very hard in French for a Metro. I watch several busses pass by, and I think sadly that one of those could probably take me where I need to go, but I'll never know because I have no internet here to tell me. Aha! There it is! A Metro station. I eagerly thunder down the steps and look around for a sign directing me to line 8. There is no such sign. Line 8 does not go to Gare St. Lazare. I know now that what I should have done was take a metro anywhere and then just transferred to line 8. But I didn't know how to do that and had a vision of myself waking up on a train in Budapest with no notion of how I got there. I left the station, hoping to ask someone for directions.

Quite nonchalantly I approached a friendly taxi-driver.

"Pardon, ah, je cherches le Metro Grands-Boulevards... Vous pouvez m'aider?" God, my French is atrocious.

The taxi driver made a tssshhh sort of noise as though to say "Well, damn lady, how the hell did you get way over here?"

I responded with a sheepish shrug. He told me in French, which I understood by some miracle, that the place I was trying to get to was basically at the other end of the city, and that it was going to be quite the journey back. 

"Or you could take a taxi," he added. "Would cost 6,40 euros." Done. I got into a different taxi (My taxi driver was off-duty or something so it's not like he was being self-serving) and sped off on my way. 

Exactly 6 euros and 40 centimes later, I got out at the correct Metro station, where I found Eloise after a brief encounter with a Welshman (W: "Guess where I'm from! Don't say England!" W's Friend: "He's from Wales. Ignore him"). Eloise took me into a bar so loud and dark I would have sworn I was in Wrigleyville if not for all the French people. She directed me to a small table where her two friends were sitting. Johannes immediately stood and kissed me on both cheeks with the greatest of fervor, so it seemed to follow that I should do the same to Ellie, which I did, although now I wonder. 

It would be a lie to say that I was immediately comfortable (how can one be?) but it certainly didn't take long. Eloise, Ellie, and Johannes were friendly and talkative (despite the deafening House music), and I was pretty soon at ease. It soon became evident that Johannes loved to dance. I returned from a trip to the bar to find him swinging Ellie, the trained ballet dancer, wildly around. They dipped, spun, turned, jumped, hilariously at odds with the awkward, sexual gyrations of the other, more reserved, dancers. When Ellie finally sat down, Johannes begged me to dance, and I was peer-pressured by the others as well. Even though I told them that I was world famous for being a terrible dancer. Well anyway, Johannes swung me about a bit, while I laughed hysterically and tried not to fall or to hit anyone. I didn't thank God, and was deemed a success. By the end of the night we were all awkwardly shaking our groove things. We weren't very graceful, but it was fun.

To catch the Metro we left at around one, and I found, to my surprise, that it was an incredibly easy train ride back to my apartment. I even got on the same train as my new friends. 

"We're going ice skating tomorrow if you'd like to join," Eloise told me. 

In my mind: ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME! TWO FRIEND DATES IN TWO DAYS! GOD I JUST WANT TO MARRY YOU OF COURSE I WANT TO GO ICE SKATING! 

What I said: "That sounds fun! Yeah, text me."

I DONT EVEN LIKE ICE SKATING!! 

"Ellie and I probably aren't going to skate. Just get some lunch."

"Oh good, me neither."

In the end, nobody went ice skating, since it didn't look like the rink was actually open. But I was introduced to Eloise and Ellie's other friends, Astral and Jane who were both very nice. We had a lovely lunch and then some hot chocolate, and admired the frankly terrifying Christmas window displays at Galleries Lafayettes. Perfectly spherical white heads vaguely attached to their couture-clad bodies by long, meandering wires covered in ribbon, were surrounded by teddy bears or dolls moving with horror-movie slowness. I thought this was Christmas! 

I also learned that in Britain, "pants" means "underpants" not "trousers." Don't make my mistake, friends.

All in all, it was an excellent day.