According to Louie I was supposed to take the RER B to Gare du Nord (a colossal train/metro interchange station in the north-east part of Paris that happened to also be an indoor mini-mall at the same time) then I was to take the metro #2 blue line and get off on Alexandre Dumas. Sounded easy enough.
Walking into Gare du Nord was intense. So many sights and smells, from the grime-coated steps of whatever color they must have been the day they were painted to the intriguing smell of ancient urine from times long past. I wanted to stay in Gare du Nord forever and sink into the walls, sleep under its benches and peddle in it's hallways. I wanted to become the white noise of the thousand unintelligible conversations that filled it's halls and pecked at my ears. It made my heart race in a way I'd never felt before. Simply awesome.
The speed that governed this massive underworld was just nuts. All these people were on their way somewhere - knowing where, racing towards it and caught up in the energy - and I was lost amongst an entourage of different colored signs (80% of which were in apparent hieroglyphics) and remembering only "blue" and something about being a Dumas. I was also starting to feel really shitty - my very first dose of jet lag - only I didn't know it yet. Oh, and another thing: in France the arrows that point upward actually mean backwards and the arrows that point down mean forwards. That made things fun when standing at the base of a staircase. Once I got to the blue line I bought a one-way ticket and (although I have no recollection of this) must have gotten off at my stop just fine. I do remember leaving the station, going up the steps and staring at the 4x5 foot map of the metro system somehow lacking the ever-valuable "you are here" symbol. This where I met a young woman equally lost. When I asked her where she was visiting from she said that she had been living in Paris her whole life. I felt good and bad about that statement. Once I finally found my street I dropped off the money and got my keys from my landlady Murielle. There was one key for the entry door plus a code to buzz through the lobby door, then another for the 6" thick steel-plated bank vault of a front door five floors above. Did I feel safe? Hmm...
Murielle and I went back to the metro and she helped me buy a weekly metro pass. I thanked her, we parted ways down different corridors and I was off to the studio - it was practice day and the guys were all excited to meet me. Indeed, the feeling was mutual.
No comments:
Post a Comment