The RATP Race

Your getting two blogs tonight; it's Friday; I felt generous :-)

'The RATP Race' and 'Light' Enjoy.

I know, the title's a joke! Like the 'Rat Race' but RATP are the public transport people of Paris, the souls I entrust my life to every morning to make sure I get to work on time!

Today I entrusted my life to me. I took the car. I took a deep breath and went for it. Well not just any car; Sophia. My mum's lovely purple Peugeot 307.

Having left the house as if I would if I was getting the metro, the RATP Race was on!

After four or five manoeuvres trying to get Sophia out of the pigeon holed underground car park of my flat, we were off, onto the streets together. And what a surprise. Nothing. No traffic.

I let Sophia stretch her legs as we went towards Porte St Cloud. She was enjoying it. Over Pont de Sevres, past the bus, rammed as normal; me in my purple cocoon, temperature set just so, the melodic tones of Alex Parks (Fame academy circa 2003?) bouncing around the car.

My automotive girlfriend sat patiently waiting for me in the underground car park of the office for my return. She knew it was Friday; it was Paris and it was rush hour. The smile had gone from her face.

We trundled back down the motorway, car and driver casually singing along to 5ive. Porte St Cloud approached once more. No signposts. Sophia and I looked at each other. We chose the 3rd of 4 exits. Immediately we regretted it. We'd hit the Peripherique. On a Friday. At rush hour.

Sophia's French sophistication and charm let us into gaps we really shouldn't have been let into. She'd become a Parisian girl! We moved through lanes, getting the occasional horn blast; we replied with a typical Parisian shrug of indifference. And finally we got out.

We pulled up at a junction a few minutes later with no traffic lights. Just wait for the people the other side of the road to stop and then go for it.

A white van man pulled up our inside; a businessman in a BMW the other side; us in the middle. I looked at Sophia as if to say 'we've been defeated; I'm sorry.' She didn't say anything, just grinned back at me. Game on.

The lights turned green. 1st. 2nd. 3rd. 4th. We'd gone. Left everyone for dead. BMW man looked baffled; white van man, gutted. My girl and me; victorious.

I think I won the RATP Race. But more than that, Sophia and I had a great Parisian adventure!

Light

As I write this sentence, yes this one right now, I am leaving Paris' Gare du Nord. I'm going home for the weekend! The platforms have just disappeared and I'm steaming under line 2 of the metro through St Denis and out onto the French countryside. In fact, I've got 90mins to kill on the train so you'll get two blogs. This one; and then one more! Happy Friday!

Paris by night is truly magical. Yes, tourists say it's lovely and romantic by day (and thanks to them I nearly missed my train!) but by night, 'The City of Lights' really is that! Muse's song 'Guiding Light' (Resistance album, track 5) really sums it up for me. Every time I walk out my door of an evening, there it is, the spotlight 324m above, spinning round; Paris' constant.

There are different lights. And sitting on trains really makes you take them in. Even on my journey to the station tonight there were all kinds of luminescence.

The orange street-lights on my street, giving way to white light as I walked across the park, to bright gold as the Eiffel Tower appeared in view; back to white as I descended into the depths of the metro. Flowing under the streets like a metallic snake, the metro paints a picture itself of light: red and green. Out once more to St Lazare into an underground cathedral of concrete and shrubbery, escalators and trains and the warm, soothing glow of halogen guiding you home.

WHOOSH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! WHIZ! go the safety lights in the RER tunnel. And out. Gare du Nord.

And what a place.

As a transport student, train stations are always special places. (except Birmingham New Street or Reading) and Gare du Nord is no exception. It takes my breath away.

The lights from the departure boards, the gold hue on the cavernous roof, the red, silver and yellow of the Thalys, TGV and Eurostar. The minty cool RATP showing tourists how to get lost.

And now, as I hurtle along at close to 200mph it's all dark outside. Autumn is upon me, the darkness of the French fields is all encompassing. And all I am is a small streak of light coming home.

Champion!

The whole day was 'mint' really! *scroll down for pics*

Firstly there was meeting the firemen on the stairs when I left my flat for hockey. Deeply concerning as I said good morning and they said 'SORTIE! SORTIE!' There might have been a fire somewhere but I was going out anyway so that was fine.

Having set up the last minute equaliser for hockey in my first match for Paris 1sts for our first points of the season, we triumphantly went back to our captains house for teas.

Last year in Bristol, hockey teas consisted of undercooked chips and A sausage in our student union. Parisian hockey teas it seems are taken more seriously.....

The match was hilarious as we were playing last years league winners who had an australian coach who was very arrogant. With five minutes to go he said 'this is too easy; why are we playing these clowns?' So I went about setting up the equalising goal and the crazy australian man was incandescent with rage and promptly demolished the dug out and shouted at all his players who left angrily. 2 points lost for them methinks!

Anyway, on with the tea story! Having got back to the captains house, he announced that cold beers were in the fridge or in the cellar and that he was popping out for a few minutes.

Upon his return, much astonishment and jubilation was let forth when out of his shopping bag appeared 5 rustic French loafs of bread, a massive slab of ham and some paté an inch thick and as big as an A4 sheet of paper!

After demolishing that with much French banter about whether Jean Sarkozy should be head of EPAD (Im sitting on the fence on that one as im agreeing with both sides) Dadou appeared with a freshly made pasta carbonara.

At this point I'm thinking, 'they take this rather seriously!'. After which appears a lovely gateau followed by coffee and WHISKY! Mindbending!

*as i write this, someone in the flat above me has thrown what appears to be cooking fat out the window and now my windowsill is covered in the stuff! not amused!*

After much gateau and less whisky, I traipsed to the metro and took 3 lines to get home; to find the flat still in one piece; thank goodness!

Then I watched the F1 on French telly; excellent fun! Except when a certain Englishman had won it, they decided that news on greves and farmers was more important.

Although I don't blame them, as I'm sure going on strike and farming are much more common participation sports here than motor racing!

So lastly, well done Jenson Button. I've been privileged enough to meet him thrice and he's such a nice bloke! So fully deserved!

Video! Update! wow.

Just got in from work and instead of getting changed, the first thing I did was blog for you! In fact on further inspection, it appears I haven't even taken my coat off!

The rame was rammed!

There's a joke in there somewhere....(French google 'rame') OK, I just did it for you. It's a colloquial term for metro or train carriage in French. Yeh, it's the best French transport based pun I could muster!

Every time I'm in the office I've arrived 'too early' (yes 9am is early in France) and I'm usually first to turn the lights on, I decided this morning to stay in bed. The upshot being I left the house 15mins later.

Anyway; what a difference 15 small minutes make!

Usually the metro and the bus are filled with people in suits, ties, people that don't say much. People that glare at you when you push them in the back trying to get on the bus only because someone is pushing you in the back. People that work in I.T. Or telecoms.

But this morning was different.

Only one bloke in a suit; I figured he must be running late as he was trying to tie his tie whilst on the metro. And the 'the others'. People who never get up on time. People that feel it's fine to wear a cardigan with a suit blazer. People who think it's wonderful to put so much gel in their hair that if the metro were to crash that would be the crumple zone. People with breasts so big that if the bus were to crash we'd have airbags. People who have iPhones.

What a difference 15 small minutes make!

I think I'll stick with the suits.

And whilst you were reading that, I hopped on the metro and two stops later I was at the Eiffel Tower. (On the way back it was three as I was reading a txt from my dad and forget to get off) But anyway; I've been living in Paris properly for nearly a week and I haven't been to the Eiffel Tower yet. I've seen it from my lounge window but not been to it.

So tonight I went. For you readers; yes PICTURES!

The first being the Eiffel Tower I took an hour ago and the second is the park outside my flat

with the Eiffel Tower in the background!

At last!

It's been coming a while; I know I promised a new one! So here it is.

Many apologies for the lateness, I've been stupidly busy; getting injured at hockey training on wednesday wasn't in the script really, although after 3 months off, I may have pushed a bit too hard!

Work has been mind-bending so far; the people are lovely, the office is wonderful, a the project is good fun too! The first meeting went along the lines of 'Ummm, Dom, we've had this brochure sent back from the publicity people. As the only English person on the floor, could you look through it and make it make sense please!' Which I duly did and now everything is hunky-dory!

There's a massive cantine; OK, when I say cantine, it says restaurant on it. Thursday lunch was a lovely salad to start, a medium rare steak and a lovely desert to end; and a glass of wine all for less than €4. Insanity! Friday I was a little more restrained and settled for the fish; lol!

And good news on the blogging front! The new phone appears on monday and gives me access to a camera and free internet so future blogs will have videos and pictures and colour and stuff that isn't annoyingly late! Although how the people on the bus in the morning will appreciate getting blogged about is a problem I shall fix when it arises.

Went to the market this morning; I shall go again next week so there shall be an all-colourful blog in 7 days time. It's like the old-school. Butchers selling massive slabs of everything, greengrocers in long coats shouting about mushrooms whilst surrounded by fruit so fresh there's probably a tree around the corner, a spice shop, a corner shop, a bakers, a flower shop.....and McDonalds. Yeh, there goes the utopian illusion right there! But the smells, the colours, the banter; all in there! Trust me readers, you'll be salivating about this for the next week until I get back down the market with my camera and show you some things!

Last, and by no means least, may I wish good luck to my lovely brother Jonathan who's starting university this week, and to all freshers in the same position. Good luck to you all!

That's all from me for the time being but I shall try and be more up-to-date next week :-)