Paris, tile: scooter breakdown, several weeks for the parts to be replaced to arrive.
Only one solution, public transport.
This first day, it's cold, we dress accordingly.
Direction line 12. First train, crowded.
No problem, just wait for the next one.
Crowded too.
Comes the third, it's the same.
We get into this by thinking about the numerous reports on the Tokyo metro.
Nose pressed to the sticky glass of the door.
A torture that lasts around twenty stations.
The passengers all have headphones on, everyone is looking at their phones.
We remember, with emotion, the days of old when the majority of adults read a newspaper.
To add to the pain, as Édouard Balladur said when he took the RER, it's crazy hot.
With winter clothes, it's intolerable, you'd have to come in a tank top.
In the evening, on the way back, same fight.
It's torture.
The next day, another option: the bus.
One day, miraculously, an appointment at 4 p.m. allows you to take a relatively empty metro.
A brief glance at the seats dissuades you from sitting down unless you have Kevlar pants.
Nicolas Ungemuth
Arriving at the shelter, the sign indicates that the next bus of line 39 arrives in 19 minutes.
We take another one which drops us off 20 minutes walk from the workplace.
It seems that in Paris, public transport is available between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., which is complicated when you are not retired.
One day, miraculously, an appointment at 4 p.m. allows you to take a relatively empty metro.
A quick glance at the seats dissuades you from sitting down unless you have Kevlar pants.
When tourists arrive for the Olympics, they will be entitled to wonder if the passengers of the Paris metro might not, by chance, be great apes (without sphincters, therefore).