Little Amusements

So, I spend a lot of time either walking or on the metro, and thus have devised a few little games to amuse myself. Today I was thinking about it and realized that a lot of them highlight little cultural differences or even just help sum up my daily life here. So, some observations:

Game: Metro race
It seems that people in Paris are always in a hurry. Always. So it can be quite amusing to watch people sprint through the metro station, often with pointy shoes and briefcases (yes, the men wear pointy shoes too. It's kind of weird). Then they'll take a leap of faith through the metro doors just as the buzzer sounds for the door to close. I've only tried this twice- once I made it, once I had to wait for the next train. Obstacles include couples who seem to think that the world will end if they stop holding hands and little old ladies with rolling shopping bags.

Game: Find the American
This game is no longer a challenge. Some Americans stick out like a sore thumb, others give themselves away more subtly (my main giveaway, for instance, is that I'm very smiley- Parisians never smile on the metro). But you can just about always tell- often from the shoes. As far as tourists, they're usually visible a mile away looking bewildered and beleaguered. I've recently modified this game to be guess-which-country-that-european-backpacker-is-from (usually Germany, ocassionally Britain).

Game: Hide the American
My fellow IES students and I pretty much spend all of our time trying to pretend we're Parisian, and blend in as best we can. We usually give ourselves away as soon as we open our mouths, because English is a dead giveaway and our French certainly doesn't sound anywhere close to native. However, for some reason French people like to ask me for directions when they're lost (standard answer: "Je ne sais pas"). And in all of my university classes so far whichever student happens to be sitting next to me has asked me questions about the syllabus/and or the lecture, at which point I'm forced to inform him/her that I'm probably not the best person to ask, although they usually figure that out on their own when I respond in accented, grammatically incorrect French. We all know we'll always be recognizably American, but we try anyways.

Game: Will it nuke?
The French really like food, and they really like fresh, homemade food. As a result, they don't really believe in the microwave. They use it occasionally, for things like heating up oatmeal or warming the occasional leftover, but they would never dream of microwaving a pizza. Even their bagel bites and hot pockets (which they have here) don't have microwave instructions. I don't generally have oven access, as it is super complicated, and very slow, and usually in use. So I've been experimenting with microwaving things that the French don't intend to be microwaved- ready made quiches, chicken cordon bleu, and the like. No disasters so far.

Game: Musical chairs
Oh the metro. Every line has a distinctly different personality, so the trains on each line are formatted slightly differently. But all trains have some combination of seats/standing room. There are usually 4-8 permanent seats in between the doors, and then in the little bay just inside the doors their are usually little folding seats that flip out when it's not too full and poles for hanging on to. And everybody wants to sit. The only sort of seat etiquette there seems to be is that very very old people get offered a seat, and women carrying babies get offered a seat. Other than that, it's very much a free-for-all scramble. Business men will race each other for seats, people vie for prime pole position, and generally everyone's goal is to find a spot in which they have enough room to open up their newspaper. I am awful at this- in my Americanness I am just not aggressive enough, although I have gotten pretty good at reading standing up without losing my balance.

In sum, I get bored on the metro and turn everything into a game. Yep.