The Curiosity of the New

I had just arrived in Paris, and that fact alone seemed to energize me. It was the type of energy that released itself slowly and carried me like a great tide despite jet-lag and exhaustion. As the bus cut and chiseled its way through the traffic, I was fixated by the strange new world outside my window. Romance mingled with urine as beggars sifted through bins for food scraps. I spied cobbled alleyways calling out to me, enticing me to approach without a map and get lost in a criss-crossed hullabaloo of litter and the tickling aroma of spring flowers. Tulips stood plentiful, in war formation as kids charged over the top of them.

The bus edged through the traffic like the faulty zipper on the jersey you choose not to wear because it takes too long to coax the zipper upwards. In the midst of trying to cut through the pandemonium of Parisian traffic, our bus stopped in the middle of the road. The driver attempted to coax the bus back to life as cars began to honk at us. Suddenly, he dashed out the bus and disappeared down a side street.

As minutes passed, a long wail of a siren took over from the honking of the horns. To my horror I realised an ambulance had managed to edge through the wall of cars without realising that once it got through it all, it would be stuck behind our bus. With no solution in sight and our shady bus driver still not having made his grand reappearance, all of us on the bus were at a loss on what to do. Some people had started banging their fists against the bus to vent their annoyance. A French woman who had enough of being stuck fought her way onto the bus and sat at the driver’s seat. She fumbled around, exactly like our driver had, but the bus remained stationary.

As tempers around us threatened to explode, we caught sight of what looked to be our bus driver. Relieved, we cheered for him as he ran to the side of the bus, drenched in sweat as fluid, molten French, not found in the tourist phrase books, spewed out from car windows. I wished that Paris' motorists could see this as less of an inconvenience. Whilst in New Zealand a traffic jam would have annoyed me too, but here- in Paris- it was a spectacular passion- filled adventure! Twenty minutes into my long anticipated introduction to the City of Love, and I was in my element, the world in my hands. In the driver’s hand… a can of petrol.