The commute, part one

After years of relying mostly on my bicicle and the scooter (we were inseperable ! which was not always a good thing) I began using public transportaion in Paris. Paris has a highly extended network of metro lines, RER lines (commuter trains to the rest of ile de france and suburbs) and buses. The trains stop running at around 1 am (now 2 am on sat !) but they are taken over by a very efficient night bus system which has been recently revamped (we all love Delanoe ! the mayor of Paris, but he deserves another post of his own). There is also a brand new slick Tram line, more from Dolanoe's effort to make people leave their cars at home.
Of course I had previously taken public transport, however not exactly during rush hour. There are a lot more people on the metro between 8 and 9 am ! That was quite something the first few days. Took a few weeks actually to get used to seeing these rivers of people flowing through the corridors, tiling up on the quais, jamming into the trains. All kinds of different people, wow, so much to look at, so many fashion faux pas ! so many fashion victims (not that I am anywhere near an expert on the subject, but my uncle is, and a bit must have rubbed off). I had no idea there were so many people in paris, you see a lot less from the scooter. These rivers of people sometimes are more like swarms. I don't know if you've ever seen the birds in Rome. They fly in large groups and they make like big black flowing clouds. The closest analogy is actually the bats in Austin, TX: there is a large long corridor at the entrance of the RER, at the end of the corridors there are deep escalators to either side going to the trains, invariably the river will veer off to the right, like the bats coming out from under the bridge. Only a few people will take the escalator on the left. Same thing happens when people get off the train.