Getting Around in Paris Dispatch 1

I live in an area in the USA where everything is far away. Food, entertainment, work – if you had to avail of any of these, you'd have to drive. Public transportation is a joke where I'm from. Bus stops are miles and miles away apart and the time in between arrivals are long. A 30 minute drive could go over 2 hours if you take the bus. There's a new train system, but it's routes are a joke, too. Often, you'd have to drive to the bus station. And some places you have to go to, you have to take the interstate/highway which more often than not feels like you're in a goddamn parking lot.

Being an avid cyclist, I often fantasize about riding my bike to work. I can't do that. My work is 30 minutes away and a big part of it is the interstate/highway where you cannot even drive a scooter on – much less a bicycle. People on bicycles in my area can be categorized by:

1) Caught DUI (driving under the influence),

2) An illegal immigrant or a “fresh off the boat” immigrant, so fresh that they haven't gotten their driver's license, yet,

3) A seasonal health buff in another one of their rollercoaster workout commitments.

I can't help but think about how convenient this style of urban planning is for oil companies, how everything is built far away from each other and taking public transportation is a pain in the ass. You end up with streets full of cars that have one passenger each, all of them burning precious dinosaur bones. Plus, if they were a Republican climate change denier making a statement, they'd be driving one of those big ass diesel pick-up trucks where they tweak the air-fuel ratio so it would spew thick black plumes of smoke. Also everyone's getting fatter because all they do is sit in fucking traffic all fucking day. That's what I call oil companies scratching the back of the health insurance companies.

Now that's something: health insurance. What a big oxymoron.

These are just some of the things I wanted to forget, even for a moment, that's why I went on a vacation.

Then I set foot on Paris - urban cyclist/environmentalist heaven.

They have a public bicycle rental system where you can pick up a bike at one location and drop it off at any other of their thousands of drop off locations in the city. It's 1,80 Euros for a day if you don't go over 30 minutes. Which means you can make multiple trips on the bicycle a day as long as you dock it before a ride goes over 30 minutes. You pay 1 Euro for each hour over the first 30 minutes.

Every street in Paris has a bike path. Some are separate from the street, most are shared with other vehicles. What I couldn't take a picture of is the driving culture as far as bikes and all other vehicles go. Though everyone still cuts each other off, there's a mutual respect for each other, be it a huge truck or a girl on a bicycle. If a bicycle's in front of motored vehicles, everyone adjusts speed to the bicycle no matter how long it takes. In roundabouts, 4 lane fast roads, bicycles run together with motored vehicles. It's beautiful, like a chaotic dance. Like a moshpit where nobody touches each other. I wish I had a GoPro so I could have shown you.

Like I said in a previous journal entry, everybody from big burly men to dainty girls are on bicycles in Paris:

Apart from bikes, you'd see a lot of foot scooters or “trottinette”s, also ridden by everybody:

Parisians also have things like these:

Then you have electric cars which are quite common here. I often find myself with my mouth open when they pass by. They sound so badass:

TO BE CONTINUED