Road to Elsewhere, Excerpt #20*: How to Create Your Own Days, Rather than Have Somebody Else Fill them For You

I knew a few things when I was twenty-two. That kid is poking me in the ribs today, asking, "Really? This is how you live now?"

AFTER RUNNING THROUGH MULTIPLE CARNETS (10-packs) of Metro tickets during my first days in Paris, I caught on to the Carte d’Orange, the all-train, all-bus, all-the-time pass to the city. It required a visit to a kiosk and extensive conversation in French with a French person, which left me glowing with sweat and bafflement the first time I did it. 

Still, I somehow wound up with a plastic sleeve with my carte and ticket inside, along with an ID photo that screamed “visiting American.” Maybe I should have left the “Property of the CHICAGO CUBS” tee shirt at home? 

With my new carte, I became adept at popping the heavy cardboard ticket into the appropriate slot in the turnstile. For the equivalent of about $15, I gained access to more than 300 metro stations strung out along 133 miles of track. 

Once I ventured out into the Paris Metro, I was well and truly in motion, and in love. And the Metro loved me back.

This overheated passage comes from one of my first journal entries in Paris: “Rem…