where is my guiding poodle when I need him

One of my favorite "English" words that French people use all the time is METRO BOY. It's their way of saying metrosexual, and it's said in English, METRO BOY. All caps to illustrate the way they take a breath before saying it, and then emphasize every syllable, the way Americans do when they say "well, SAY LAH VEE!"

I'm a metro girl. Not only do I have the stops memorized, but I know by heart the number of steps down into the metro, the sound it makes when it's a few seconds away, and exactly how far you need to lean when it's stopping so as not to move at all. At the end of a long day, there's nothing more soothing than sitting in a bright orange seat, and riding through the dark tunnel as the stops go by - Castellane, Estrangin, Vieux Port...

But today I visited my friend who lives in the seventh, a neighborhood so swanky that everyone has cars, or private jets, or something that prevents them from needing the metro. The only public transportation is the bus.

I'm not a bus girl. Marseille a hundred buses that swirl around the city like noodles, and once you're one you never know where it's going or when to get off. Miss your stop and you're halfway to Spain. I have no interest in the bus at all.

But there I was in the seventh, on a bus toward Spain. Against my better judgment, I pulled out a map and started trying to make sense of things, prompting a handful of male passengers gravitate toward me and ask if I needed directions. All of them claimed to know the place well, and be going in the same direction. I don't know if it was just because we were near the port, but it smelled fishy. The least creepy of the bunch said that my map was worthless, and that he would tell me which stop to get off at no problem. But when his directions made me miss my stop by four blocks, I gave him a little sampling of my favorite angry French words. He didn't ask for my number.

After several more adventures, I made it to my friend's without a hitch. That is, if your definition of "hitch" doesn't include getting lost three times. What can I say, I'm a METRO GIRL.