Paris on two wheels

Firstly, I need to start remembering which streets are one-way. This is crucial, as it causes much circling around on my part at the moment when I can't remember.

Secondly, how the hell do they make left turns in this town? There really are bike lanes all over the place, but I can't remember ever seeing a bike out in the left lane of traffic to make the turn. And it might be a bad idea in any case. So you have to cross over the corners. Actually, I yelled at someone for the first time in French yesterday, a pedestrian who told me that bikes weren't allowed on the sidewalk, when I was just crossing over a corner to make a left turn. I indignantly (and dishonestly, but the indignation was honest!) yelled back, "Je sais -- c'est pour me stationner." Which is roughly, "I know -- it's to park myself," but I think he got the idea, and said "Je vous en prie," a couple of times, which is typically translated as "You're welcome," but here evidently was more like "sorry."

It's certainly getting me in shape. There are hills in Paris; who knew? I had to get off to walk up Boulevard St. Michel on account of the huffing and puffing. And good lord, six flights then after coming home on my bike really adds insult to injury. But it does make me feel all hard-core.

Hooray for all the bike lanes, especially Boulevard de Montparnasse, where busses, taxis, and bikes share the two middle lanes together, protected from the real traffic by curbs.

The email server is down at my grad school alma mater, incidentally! I can receive mail on my Paris email, but I can't send any from it (because it doesn't let you send any unless you're actually on campus, grrr). I'm working on an alternative.