This afternoon I was running to catch a Chatelet-bound metro on my way to Gare de Lyon, where I would buy a pricey (185 euro) ticket for Tuesday morning’s train to Cannes (departing at 7:19, arriving at 12:23 pm). A train was just pulling out as I was coming down the stairs. In New York that would mean shaking your head and going “okay, bad luck…now I have to wait eight or ten minutes for the next train as I sit here without wifi and smell the urine and watch the rats scurrying across the tracks.” But this is Paris. Less than two minutes later the next train pulled in. Arguably the best metro system in the world — clean cars, doors you can open on your own, good wifi in every station.