Hey everyone,
I’m going to start this post off with some pictures. The first on is the Eiffel tower at night on the hour. This was taken last Friday when some of the other GE folks and I went there to hang out.
This following picture is of a couple of
the kids with whom I work at ”Les enfants de la goutte d’or.” The first is my
tutee, Omar, and then one of the two of us together. The next picture is of the
Spanish intern, Maura, with two other girls (the girl on the right is Karima or
her sister, can’t quite remember). The last picture was of us trying to take a
picture us three but it’s hard to do with so many active kids. That day,
Tuesday, the other interns had exams so they didn’t come in or else I would’ve
have gotten a picture with them also.
(Omar)
(Omar, Me)
(Me, Omar, Maura, Karima)
(uhhhhhhhh, Maura, Karima)
To continue off
from the Eiffel Tower picture from last Friday, I took the night bus for the
first time here in France. Personally, I don’t think it is as bad as some
people make it out to be. I mean, yeah because it’s at night there could be
more danger but there always will be on public transportation no matter where
you are and as long as you keep your eyes peeled, guard up, and your belongings
close to you, you will be fine. I don’t want to say that you shouldn’t trust
people but thieves and bad people aren’t made as apparent and they are in the
movies; They can look like any person like you or me and they do the same
things as you and me.
One thing I
realized about any type of transportation like the metro, train, bus, etc., is
that you can the same NaviGo card as long as you stay in your prepaid zone.
There are 5 zones and I bought for two zones which costs 62€, if I remember
correctly, for the month, which doesn’t include the initial 5€ charge for
getting the card. For 3 zones I think it costs around 85€. You can also
recharge for the week if you arrive in the middle or near the end of the month
which costs around 20€ plus initial charge. If you are only in for a couple
days and just want tickets, you can buy a pack of 10 tickets at 13,70€. A card
is recommended even for a week especially if you want to wonder around and
explore the metro system because that way you can also get lost without worry
about tickets. The only thing is you can’t enter the same stop twice in a row
so you can’t swipe your card for someone else behind you but two people can go
through at once or you can hold the door open and you can jump the turn-style
people counter mechanism. You will see people do this a lot. Another thing to
remember is that not at every Metro stop can you switch sides to switch
directions on the same line. Sometimes you have to exit and reenter which
doesn’t make much sense in my opinion. These ones aren’t marked so there no
sure way of knowing this but there are also other stops where there is a sign
that says you cannot enter because they want you to exit and reenter to switch
sides but it’s not a big deal. Like I mentioned before, you will see people do
everything that I have described here and more.
You have to be
careful for the security people, too. As in my experience, they check tickets
and cards and if you don’t have your ticket but you did in fact pay, they will
bend you over. If you NaviGo card do not have a picture of you on it, you will
get a warning and a mark on it, which doesn’t affect how you enter in any way.
Since all stops are different in layout and design, the security could be at
any spot. Sometimes the entrance is right at the platform and other times it is
a good walk from the platform. I’ve also heard other metro/subway stories where
they may check your ticket on the subway itself but I’m not sure if this is
practiced here.
Now, to get back
to the night bus story, the bus that I was on was less crowded and seemed a bit
more diverse in people to those that I usually see on the metro. This could be
for several reasons though: I was leaving a very popular restaurant/club area
and the bus was destined for some of the major stops including hotels. Whatever
may be the reason, it seemed safer in some ways but if I realize things like
these, I can safely assume that I am probably not the only one, which could
make the beginning and ending stops possible targets for theft and other types
of unwanted encounters.
I will end this
post by also mentioning how I took a taxi for the first time here and it wasn’t
as expensive as I thought it would be. I learned a lot from talking up the taxi
driver who was really nice. This was actually the third taxi that I had flagged
down and I’ll tell you why that is in a minute. First of all, I think it is a
habit to ask the price of a ride when you are in a foreign place especially
when you aren’t quite fluent in the language so that you can avoid possible
conflict over what to pay in the end. There are a lot of scum bag taxi drivers
who will do one of two things; (1) They may tell you a ridiculous price
expecting you to try to negotiate down a couple $$/€€ so that you think you’ve
gotten a deal, which is in fact a deal in comparison to the original rip-off
price but is nowhere near one in comparison to what you should be paying or
what a taximeter might charge you. (2) Even when you think you’re smart and
convinced them to put on the taximeter, which my final taxi driver told me is
REQUIRE BY LAW, picking up on how you act or speak or a mixture of other
things, they will presume that you do not know the area that well and may take
alternate, longer, stoplight/stop sign filled routes to run up the taximeter in
there favor. So make sure you know where you are going and make sure you get
there without detours. On top of that, if you don’t know the language to well
and you have an arranged price some taxi drivers may try to charge you extra or
get you to tip them for whatever reason, i.e., lots of traffic, picking up a
friend, making several stops and the driver claiming you didn’t mention all the
stops. Now to end my post, just remember to keep your stuff on you and not in
the trunk because that way you have the negotiating power and they have no
leverage. Obviously, this isn’t always possible in case you are coming from the
airport or a huge shopping spree but if they lie to you or try to pull
something else you can always just get out and refuse to pay. If things have
gone that far south, I know cases where this is the fact, I would advise you to
run.
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!
Until
next post!
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