Commuter rage and Montmartre (again again)

What you have to understand is that I put a lot of thought into it. I wanted to buy my visiting parent a weekly carte orange, at €16.80, but after asking whether they had a start date my friendly local metro ticket dealer informed me that there was no point in buying him a weekly card as the only ones now on sale were for the next calendar week, beginning the day of his departure. Thinking that the daily card would not be worth it in the short term, as we would need two tickets on the evening of his arrival, I went ahead and bought a carnet – ten single tickets – thinking that we’d probably get a one-day pass for the Monday, which would bring the price to a reasonable total. The process wasn’t stressful, exactly, but it did involve the man in the window (in the metro station, not in my mind) switching to English as soon as he caught an accent. This would not have been a problem except that the metro staff can have this weary, eye-rolling way of doing that which grates, especially when you’re not asking them to suffer the indignity of the English language for you. I happen to speak decent French, thank you very much, I thought, and I know very well how to conduct this conversation in your language. Um, vive la France, bye.

In retrospect, it seems vainly principled, but we continued the conversation, him in English, me in French, until we had debated all the possible options and I had completed my purchase. We will return to this theme of my patience with other human beings shortly.

On Friday evening, I had set forth to Porte Maillot, to retrieve Dodo, and had to endure en route the events described here. This was bad enough. Then, as I approached Porte Maillot, my iPod ran out of battery power. Oh well, I thought, I won’t need it on the way back. Just at that moment I got the following text message.

“Forgot to collect bag. On bus back to airport. Go home.”

This didn’t do much for my mood, and nether did the three hundred steps at the Porte Maillot RER station on my way to the metro.

On Saturday morning, once reunited and well-slept, I had decided we would ride the Montmartrobus and do a wee tour of the Butte before meeting Meg and Jo Ann at the catacombs in Montparnasse. Small problem. Every time you get on a bus you need a new ticket. So I decided that Saturday, not Monday, would be an awfully good day to get the day ticket. Bigger problem. They don’t sell them in the automated machines and the window was unmanned. Ah.

Problem solver that I am, I decreed that we would use one ticket, go along to Jules Joffrin metro where the Montmartrobus begins, and try that station. In due course, we got a day ticket and boarded the Montmartrobus. That was easy. It was the getting off that was the problem, and led to my little temper problem. A man was standing in the narrowest part of the bus, right in front of the doors at the centre, with a buggy. This buggy was wedged in between the two pillars. When I said, “Excuse me,” I thought he might at least move. But no, he stood right there unflinching and waited for me to climb over. Which I did, but we missed the stop. That was bad enough, but what I wasn’t quite expecting was the cool wave of rage that washed over me as I stood, fuming, in front of the doors. When we got off at the next stop, I allowed myself a little tantrum with foot stamping before we continued sightseeing. Four weeks before I had rolled my eyes at those Parisian commuters whose expressions betrayed disgruntlement and disapproval at anyone who got in their way, and here I was – one of them. I allowed myself a moment of horrified introspection before deciding that paintings were really far more interesting.

I remembered that I hadn’t taken a picture of the water tower before, which, along with Sacre Coeur, is a major landmark in Paris.

We explored the upper part of Montmartre, hanging out around Sacre Coeur (where, once again, I encountered the busker in a cowboy hat who seemed to sing nothing but bouncified James Blunt covers), appreciating the portrait artists who actually take no for an answer when you reject them cruelly, and browsing the paintings in Place des Tertres. The best part, again, was St Pierre, with its fascinating stained glass, and this time I took some pictures.

There was a genuinely artistic modern crucifixion scene.

And this is my favourite – there are scenes from the life of Peter all round the sanctuary, and this is his walking on water.

Descending in the less-than-thrilling funicular, we passed some friendship bracelet sellers who seemed convinced that what I wanted was one of their creations (they were quite lucky, given my recent experiences, that they didn’t get my nails dug into them when they tried to grab my wrist) and inched forward, much distracted by shop windows, to Abbesses once more, where we revisited St Jean, my favourite church in Paris.

We also got lunch at the bakery with the meringues, and treated ourselves to a big strawberry one which actually lasted more than three days. We ate under a tree in Abbesses and watched as no less than four young couples stood around the metro station, DK guides open to the map pages, in a weird sort of frozen performance art. None of them realised the other three were doing exactly the same thing or looked exactly the same, which amused me no end.

Heading down via the dreaded Montparnasse station to Denfert-Rochereau, we rendezvous-ed avec Jo Ann in the big lion-adorned square (loved the lion).