My sister, Dr. Christine Swardson Olver, is spending four months in Paris doing canine cancer  research, her second spell as a scientist in France. She has already mastered the place, or at least the transportation part.

By Christine Swardson Olver

I decided to live in Maisons-Laffitte, a leafy Paris bedroom community, because I had the best chance of finding a horse to ride there. I did, but I also gave myself a long commute: The medical school where I’m working, located at Pitié Salpetrière, is in the 13^th arrondissement.

To speed up the trips (and to get to the horse stable), I rented a bike. That’s where it got exciting. So many choices!

I found I could bike from Maisons-Laffitte all the way to my work, which would take 1.5 hours if I survived all the way to the end. Or I could bike, lock it up at the station, take the RER A train, then walk. Or I could bike, then take the train with bike on it, then bike again.

So far, Option 3 has yielded the shortest travel time, and some unforgettable moments. My favorite was a dad on his bike in Maisons-Laffitte, pushing his very small child to school on HIS bike, at adult speed. The picture below, although blurry, shows a mom carrying four children in what looks like a wooden box, and a dad riding his kid shotgun on the front of his bike.

Photo: Christine Swardson Olver

I’m struck by how many people commute by bike-on-train. Theoretically, this is only allowed before 6:30 a.m., to avoid rush hour. But, theoretically, I pretend that I’ve never read that rule.

This is one way in which I am becoming French. Other ways include skipping a shower every so often, enjoying raggedy lawns rather than expecting them to be perfectly manicured and appreciating horse poop on the street. (If my horses poop on the asphalt at home, I have to remember once my ride is done that it happened, load my car up with rake and bucket, drive over to where my horse pooped and pick it up.)

Verveine, the name of the horse I ride here, is free to poop where she pleases.

Photo: CSO

Being French is the only way to bike in Paris. I see bikes zipping around between cars, jay-riding and riding the wrong way on roundabouts, and I see many, many people riding without helmets. I wear a helmet, but am happy to zip around on my bike. The drivers don’t seem to mind too much, except when they do mind, and then they irritably honk their horn. On the other hand, people also help me get my bike through the barriers at the train station and offer to carry it up the stairs.

My French is better than it ever has been (well, since I was an 8-year-old blabbing away at a village school in a Swiss Alpine village). For instance, I ride (horses) with two different people and am able to carry on a conversation with them. One of them even told me I speak French very well. What she did not realize, however, is that I only get about 50% of what she is saying. I intuit the rest, and then say something neutral, as if I had understood the whole conversation.

Photo: CSO

I suspect I get misunderstood sometimes. For example, if I pronounce “Brian” in a French way, it comes out as breeyan, which is also how the French pronounce “brilliant.” People must think that I have a very smart or shiny husband, or that Americans name people in a very strange way.

Back to my commute. When I first started doing this, I left home at about 8:15 a.m., which turned out to be a bad idea. And I made the strategic error of not getting on the first or last car, which has more room for bikes.

Neither of these was a problem until I got to La Defense, the financial district, where approximately 100,000 people got on my train. I felt very self-conscious about myself and my large and very greasy bike with its blue octopus horn on the handlebars. But no one cared. They just crammed themselves into the car just like that is what they do every day (it probably is, actually). I was able to snap some shots of the crowdedness by pretending to text.

It was crammed getting off the train at Gare de Lyon, not to mention going up the escalator, squeezing through the exit, trying to get the other people on escalator no. 2 to let me on and then carrying my bike up the stairs.

Photos: Anne Swardson

And then I was on my way!

Photo: AS

Photo: CSO

It’s usually more crowded. Note that this is a TWO-WAY bike lane.

Photo: CSO

There’s always someone to look at.

This trip took longer since my sister kept bugging me to pose for photos, but I still got to work in 56 minutes. My record is 46 minutes, 52 seconds.

Photo: A kind stranger

The public transportation system in France is stunning, but one would be remiss not to mention the perturbations. On the morning of a very important presentation to my new colleagues, the train at Maisons-Laffitte was dead. Or “perturbed,” as the sign said, and would be until noon.

People wandered around the station with flustered looks on their faces. I called an Uber. It took me 1.7 hours to get to my destination.

Meanwhile, my colleagues were waiting for me to do my presentation. When I got there and told my story, my host said, “Welcome to Paris.”