On the first day of the Paris Olympics, my freebie media Metro card stopped working. It was miserably hot and raining and my attitude was not Olympic.
I went back and forth with the ticket taker in pidgin French. She told me to go to the entrance, which was nowhere near her booth, and press the ‘Assistance’ button.
I go there. I do that. A voice like something from Jabba’s palace comes on and starts barking at me incomprehensibly.
Then a passing commuter stopped. I mimed helplessness. She tried to take up my cause, but Intercom Lady cut the line.
My Good Samaritan was suddenly enraged. Threw up her hands. Bugged out her eyes. Slapped her hands against her thighs. Hung her head. I got the feeling this was not the first time she’d been hung up on in the Metro.
“You come after me,” she said.
Sorry?
“You come. After me,” and then she mimed the two of us going through one of those turnstile/sliding door contraptions they have in the Paris Metro. An exaggerated picking up and putting down of her feet that I found – apologies for this – very mime-like.
Those turnstiles are not big. I am. So I had to drape myself over her back to get through.
Then a merry “Bonne journée!” and she was gone.
That was the Paris Olympics.
As usual, the horror stories worked. Fearing 24-hour-a-day disruption, Parisians left. That cleared up most of the disruption.
Away from the venues, the city was, relative to its normal state, a ghost town. Every stop in every restaurant eventually devolved into complaints about the lack of trade.
One waiter suggested we visit a nearby bar he favoured. Would we see him there later?
“Non,” he said, morose. “There is no business. And I am sad.”
Here’s me thinking that’s why they built bars in the first place, but the French mindset is complex. The bar was wonderful. We saw the waiter there later. He didn’t look sad.
Paris in summer with a little elbow room and everything still open is even better than Paris under normal circ*mstances. And usually it’s the greatest city in the world. So this was the Olympics that could not fail.
Did everything work? No. Almost nothing worked exactly as it should.
A little scary? Yes. No recent Olympics – Sochi included – was as obviously militarized.
Was everything to your liking? No. What is it with the French and air conditioning? They refuse it. There’s a voice on the Metro reminding you in several languages that “this is an air-conditioned car.” That is a filthy lie and people here have fallen for it.
Did the trains run on time? Also yes, but only when they ran at all, and that was not a given.
One day I rolled up to the Gare de Lyon and it was closed. Like a corner store on Christmas. Weather down the track or something. Pas de travail aujourd’hui.
This was another opportunity to observe the Paris way of being. Back home, thousands of people getting their travel cancelled or delayed all at once would be a big deal. Not here. They’re used to it. Most arrived, luggage in tow, scoped the situation, made a call and left. No point in arguing.
I assume this is how Paris got stuck with the Olympics in the first place.
Once you’ve done a few of these things, you can see how they’re getting more rickety each time. Using environmentalism as an excuse, organizers have stopped making sure everything is top drawer. It’s middle drawer now.
The venues look incredible on TV, but turn a corner backstage and nothing is finished. The Olympics are a travelling film set.
It’s built for one person – you, sitting at home, thinking about how great it would be to go to the Olympics because everything looks incredible on TV.
Would I recommend that? Without reservation. If you have the means and the inclination, you should do that.
A stadium tour is fine, but one stadium is like another. Go to an Olympics. Nothing is like it.
Don’t book something years out. That’s when the gougers are still full of confidence. Wait until six months before. If you have the steel, six weeks out. Then you can get something reasonable.
Do not mind the stories talking about what a disaster it will be. They’re all disasters before they begin. They’re all fine once they do.
As long as you don’t expect to swan into the gold-medal men’s basketball game, you will find tickets. Try something new. My favourite viewing experience in Paris was weightlifting. That’s two hours of undiluted, mounting drama.
But if you go, you must do so with the correct goals in mind. This is not about sports. You’re not here to see winners. You’re here to see people having the best or worst day of their lives. Sometimes both at once. You don’t get that at a baseball game.
When people cry here – and they are crying all the time – I suspect they are neither tears of joy nor tears of sadness (though that’s what the athletes say). They are the result of being totally overwhelmed by how big life can get sometimes.
Yesterday, you were at a gym in Nanaimo or Trois-Rivières or Sussex. Today, you are in Paris writing the first line of your obituary. I’d cry, too.
That sort of emotion is communicable. Being here makes you vulnerable to it. One colleague – a real reporter’s reporter – was constantly busting into tears at random sports none of us totally understand.
It’s not the sports. It’s the people. You don’t have to know them or understand what they do. You just have to give in and feel it.
So while I would rather vacation in a gulag than travel to sports on my time off, I can 100-per-cent guarantee you will have a life-altering experience at an Olympics. Like Jorge Luis Borges or Pink Floyd, it’s about as close as you can get to tapping into the main source. Once again here, the Games hit that bar.
So adieu Paris. You didn’t save the Olympics because the Olympics doesn’t need saving. What you did was instill it with renewed confidence, just by being your salty self.
