Saturday

I was feeling rather bold getting out of the Gardens, so I took the bus. Oh, yes! Now, trams are easy. I love the Metro. I’ve mastered the CATA buses of State College. But city buses, oooh. I fear them. It’s the human element there that makes the difference. If you mess up on the Metro, big deal. Go back, find a map, get your bearings, then try again. Not on a bus. If you don’t have the right change or have the wrong pass, you have a ton of angry people waiting on you and staring. Eek. Anyways, my Metro pass worked just fine, and I got a lovely, lovely tour of the city and got off right in front of the Metro station.

I had some time to kill, so I walked down the street to the Animalerie, where they had lots of animals in a very, very small space. These were not inexpensive dogs.

I loved this fountain.

I had to take the RER line from the Chatelet metro station, so I figured it might be a tiny stroll. Uh, no. It was practically a mile, no kidding. This is but a small section of the wonderful moving walkway.

I want to live at Noisy-Champs.

They still had that good old standby, the Metro movie. Did I detail the plot last time? Perhaps. I’ll do it again. They explain so much without using words. So these three friends want to take the Metro. They go the station, and one of the friends is a troublemaker since he tries to get through without his ticket. “No,” mime the others gently, “You should buy a pass. It’s the right thing to do.” “Gosh darn it, guys,” thinks the Troublemaker, “Shucks! I will buy a pass.” He strolls to the ticket window and cheerily completes his lawful transaction. Everything seems so right. They even manage to find three seats out of a set of four vacant, which I can tell you right now has never happened.

Then, catastrophe. While in the act of sitting down, Troublemaker’s metro ticket glides sleekly out of his pocket, perhaps sensing that T never really wanted him in the first place. It lands softly on the ground next to him. This all happens without the knowledge of anyone except the one guy who was already sitting in the seats before the gang showed up. However, he says not a word. Why? Why? We don’t know.

Tragedy strikes: a lady conductor gets on board and goes around asking to see the tickets. Troublemaker thinks he’s got it made in the shade, but whoa! No ticket! What? This is the last time he’ll follow the rules ever again. What’s he to do? Luckily, 4^th Seat Man decides that it’s finally time to speak up and lets them all in on the whole ‘your pass is hanging out on the ground next to your seat’ thing. Everything is right with the world again.