When I got to france, host dad told me thy I needed to always have a book on the metro and that I shouldn't make eye contact with anyone. Sometimes I forget my book & I want to recount the various awkward encounters I've had thus far. I've got some gems.
The singing accordion player
Very often, people play instruments on the metro and people give them a little bit of money if they play well. There is one accordion player who is constantly on line 3 and we keep having extremely awkward run in's. This one particular evening he stopped playing his song and in front of the entire metro car, told me I was the most beautiful person he has ever seen. People clapped. It was uncomfortable. Every time I have seen him afterwards he has winked at me.
The hop-off
Also on line 3, a man got on the metro and sat directly across from me. He was humming and singing to himself but wasn't threatening in the least. He asked if I had a tissue, I did not (bad Au Pair) he asked several other people, eventually found one and then went back to humming his song. It came time for me to get off the metro and switch lines so I got off. As I walked through the metro station I heard a "mademoiselle!!!" and turned around to see this guy had hopped off the metro and run after me, I assumed I dropped something and stopped. He proceeded to invite me to get a coffee and told me I was really pretty and he would have regretted the chance not to at least invite me for coffee. I politely said no thank you but that it was really sweet, he wished me a wonderful night and then went to wait for the next train.
Let's get married
Staying out until 6am is always awful. It's so exhausting and taking the train in the morning is rough because there are rowdy drunk people, so you never go alone. This time, Katherine and I were taking the metro back and an extremely drunk guy heard us speaking English, and told me he really wants to live in the United States one day and proceeded to propose to me and then introduce me to the entire train as his woman. He was not bad looking. Should have let that one ride.
Naked homeless
This happened just the other night, I was sitting on the 1 and a man gets on the metro with his guitar case and he is just talking a mile a minute. I understand exactly nothing of what he is saying but immediately realize he is homeless. He sits across from a really pretty blonde girl and starts waving at her and trying to get her attention. All of the sudden he lifts up his shirt and shows her his stomach. Everyone is horrified. He then unbuttons his shirt and flashes his whole chest and everyone. Literally speechless. He then sat on the metro and played his guitar the rest of the ride. It was weird.
Lesbian dance party
Waiting for the metro one night and it finally pulls up in front of me. I should have known better when I saw people dancing on the car I got onto but I just assumed this was a rowdy group of French people who would mind their own business. Not true. I sit down and am unnoticed for several minutes, enough to get a good look at the situation. It's a group of 7 people, 2 girls dressed really fancy with short skirts and hiiiigh heels, one girl with super short hair, a sports bra and these weird pants that I can only describe as short parachute pants, then the rest were guys dressed pretty scuzzily. They had these homemade instruments that were like big sticks with strings and looked African? All of this is completely surreal to me. They are dancing and shouting and the girl with the weird pants is doing hand stands and swinging from the handle bars. I consider getting off and switching compartments when one of the guys spots me. I knew immediately I was in for it. He comes up and serenades me in a language that I didn't recognize and then dances around me. He tries to take my hand and kiss it but the girl in the weird pants intercepts him and does it herself. The two of them proceed to dance literally on top of me even though I kept saying "arrêtez s'il vous plaît" and then the girl tells me she loves me and the entire group got off the train and went about their way. Um...what?
Riding in the conductors cabin of the metro
Waiting to take the metro home from school one day, hands in my pockets, I yawn. At the moment I yawn, the metro pulls up and the conductor opens his front door and tells me that it's rude not to cover your mouth when you yawn. I apologize and start to get into the train. He tells me to come in the front compartment with him, and he will show me how the train works. I say no thank you and scurry onto the train. I sit down and the conductor then opens a door into the compartment. He tells me he won't drive the train until I get into the front of it. There were like 20 people in my compartment staring at me, looking at me like 'um, get into the front section. Now. We're late.' I'm only going 3 stops and I really have wanted to ride in the front of the train... So I go.
He sets me up in a little seat next to him and starts showing me buttons and levers and then asks if I like Tupac and plays some songs on his iPhone. He introduced himself to me (I immediately forgot his name on accident) and am just content to watch the view from the front of the train. It was actually pretty cool. Suddenly it was my stop, I thank him and he tells me that he drives the 2 every afternoon and if he ever sees me waiting for it, I am not allowed to ride in the passenger cabin, I have to ride with him.
I am the queen of the metro
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