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| Paris traffic |
| Saturday, February 10, 2007 |
Archana's post on Miami traffic reminded me of this very funny piece I read in this book. I was at Borders when I started reading this book. I burst out laughing the first time I read it. I read out the passage to DH again, and this time I just could not read out the passage I was laughing so hard, regardless of the other people there, who were quite amused at my behaviour. The fact that we have been there, seen the places the author was describing, of course, added fuel to the laughter. I bought that book. After a long time, believe me, very long time I finally found a book which caught my attention long enough for me to finish it. Thanks to Emolior for introducing me to this awesome author.
Excerpt from Neither here nor there, Travels in Europe by Bill Bryson :
"A blue haze of uncombusted diesel hangs over every boulevard. I know Baron Haussmann made Paris a grand place to look at, but the man had no concept of traffic flow. At the Arc de Triomphe alone, thirteen roads come together. Can you imagine? I mean to say, here you have a city with the world's most pathological aggressive drivers - drivers who in other circumstances would have been given injections of Valium from syringes the sizes of bicycle pumps and confined to their beds with leather straps - and you give them an open space where they can all try to go in any of the thirteen directions at once. Is that asking for trouble or what?
It still happens. At the Place de la Bastille, a vast open space dominated on its northeastern side by the glossy new Paris Opera House, I spent three quarters of an hour trying to get from the Rue de Lyon to the Rue do St. Antoine. The problem is that the pedestrian crossing lights have been designed with the clear purpose of leaving the foreign visitor confused, humiliated, and, if all goes according to plan, dead.
This is what happens: You arrive at a square to find all the traffic stopped, but the pedestrian light is red and you know that if you venture so much as a foot off the curb all the cars willl surge forward and turn you into a gooey crepe. So you wait. Afetr a minute, a blind person comes along and crosses the great cobbled plain without hesitating. Then a ninety year old lady in a motorized wheelchair trundles past and wobbles across the cobbles to the other side of the square a quarter of a mile away.
You are uncomfortably aware that all the drivers within fifty yards are sitting with moistened lips watching you expectantly, so you pretend that you dont really want to cross the street at all, that actually you have come over here to look at this interesting fin de si'ecle lamppost. After another minute, 150 preschool children are herded across by their teachers, and then the blind man returns from the other direction with two bags of shopping. Finally the pedestrian light turns green, and you step off the curb and all the cars comes charging at you. And I dont care how paranoid and irrational this sounds; I know for a fact that the people of Paris want me dead." |
posted by SK @ 11:01 AM  |
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:). Its funny how I started with reading Dave Barry, hopped onto Bill Bryson and strung along and now reading the blog on Miami traffic, its back to square one :) (pun intended!).
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:). Its funny how I started with reading Dave Barry, hopped onto Bill Bryson and strung along and now reading the blog on Miami traffic, its back to square one :) (pun intended!).