I’ll never be a true Parisian because I don’t make out in the metro and other stories…

Since I’ve arrived in Paris, I have spent a good 25% of my life riding the metro. And, I know that Paris is the city of love and all that gushy stuff, but I find it hard to believe that anything about the metro, even the Indian guy singing “killing me softly” on his karaoke machine in broken English, is even remotely arousing. Every metro station smells like urine with a side of eau de homeless person. Sometimes, you think you’ve gotten used to the smell and then you get smacked in the face with that extra fresh batch of stank, just as you round the corner. There are also the hairball tumbleweeds and various garbage floating around to add to the ambiance. Anyways, you get the idea, not exactly romantic. However, this does not seem to deter hundreds of people from full on sucking face in the middle of the metro. I usually try to ignore it, but today I was absolutely fascinated.
Picture this, you’re crammed into a small train with about 40 other people, everyone is standing up because there’s no room and you next to you, an extremely unattractive Australian couple. The man is heavy-set, he has a big, bushy, black uni-brow, and a gigantic, has its own zip code size mole on his chin. The woman is also overweight, has bad skin and she has her hair done in clumps of small braids like she went to Jamaica a month ago, got one of the locals to braid her hair, and then didn’t wash it for three or four weeks. Then, all of the sudden, right next to you, dirty braids and the uni-brow mole man start going at it. You can’t turn away from this train wreck, even if you wanted to, because there’s no room. You actually try to turn away, but then you can still see them making out in the reflection on the train window. This goes on for a good 20 minutes, complete with breaks for the whispering of sweet nothings. Welcome to the city of love.

In other news, I finally started my short bus (ie: beginner’s) French class. It is actually doable and I can understand most of what’s going on. IT’S A MIRACLE. It’s like God smiled down upon me and blessed me with grammar and pronunciation lessons. Rest assured that it is still taught entirely in French, much to the dismay of my four classmates who have never had any French before. But, everyone is doing really well and at least trying to speak. Hooray for verb conjugation. Today, we learned about the rooms of a house and some French geography. So, now I won’t tell anyone else that I live in the street. I can’t wait until I can speak in the past tense. It’s going to be awesome. Unfortunately, we still have marketing, negotiation and sociology of the organization classes with the big kids who actually know French, but I feel a little less overwhelmed. Next week, I have taken a vow to speak only French until 8 at night, in order to get ready for the career fair next Friday. Wish me luck!