metro

so i've spent a lot of time on the metro since being here, as do most parisians i would imagine. since i have yet to figure out the bus system, i take the metro everywhere i go, and its totally affordable because of this wonderful little pass i have. its called a navigo and i paid for a month of unlimited travel on metro, bus, and trams all over paris. best invention ever. so much better than dc.
in dc i would spend about 20 bucks every two weeks when i worked twice a week and then just general goings on. if i used the metro as much in dc as i use it here, i would probably be spending about 20 bucks every other day!
not only is the paris metro affordable (at least for me...) its so comprehensive! you're never far from a stop and everywhere you go is close to a stop (those sound the same i know... but i mean them in different ways, not sure if i can explain it though). for example, in dc you might want to go to the jefferson memorial. well what metro stop should you use? smithsonian? ok, now you've got a very long walk. in paris, its where do you want to go? musee d'orsay? ok, you have a number of metro stops to choose from and if you have to walk, its probably a couple blocks at most.
i guess this post is basically trying to say that i'm so glad that paris has this great system cause i think this city would be much more difficult and time consuming to get around if it didn't!
case in point about metro: there are 4 metro stops that i can go to. pasteur (this is the closest and the one i used the most), falguiere, duroc, and montparnasse. montparnasse is the longest walk at about ten minutes. pasteur is about 3 or 4 min. and there are two lines that go through pasteur, and two different lines that go through duroc, and montparnasse has one other that the other two don't have.
sorry that i keep going on about this, i'm just impressed. haha.

i found out that montparnasse was so close today because i was walking around the neighborhood a bit, since i've never really done it. and i found shopping. lots of shopping. probably not the best thing to find so close to my house!

i also discovered on friday the student cafeterias called the "crus." it works on a point system, so 6 points is a meal and ends up costing 2.85. the meal is very large. on friday i had a big piece of chicken, some fries, a tarte, and a piece of bread. my friend allison got a big piece of fish and some ratatouille with a piece of fruit and some salad and the bread. its probably the best thing ever.

anyways, i need to be doing some homework.