stirkes, and rioting, and public unrest, oh my!

this is more of a courtesy post more than an informative or descriptive one. it is mainly to reiterate the point that

1)i'm not dead
2)plan to be dead due to political uprisings

i am, of course, talking about the rioting that has been underfoot in the suburbs of Paris. Mainly one suburb to the north. Way north. Ile-de-France, which is what the surrounding area, or the GPA if you will, is called. It is quite massive, housing at least 12 million people.

this is what wikipedia says is the size of the GPA


just lovely. here is a map symbolizing my proximity to what sarkozy calls "unacceptable" rioting. two days of shooting at police and setting things on fire, fine. it's france. but three days? this is just rude.


so you see, it's really not a big deal. i live in the heart of paris, properly called le marais, more commonly called 'the gay district'. so as long as the riots don't shut down fashion production or infringe on anything that is 'just fabulous', i think i'll be pretty safe in my neighbourhood.

à la bibilothèque

this video sums up my life here in paris pretty succinctly. almost exactly in fact.

enjoy

strikes, je les deteste

France is still paralyzed by strikes. Wait. That is not correct. It's not fully paralyzed, just severely maimed so that crawling is the only method of movement and staying still is not an option. During the last strike in October, I didn't have to go to work because transportation was shut down almost entirely. This was better because it was only two days. It's been a week now with barely any service. Now I have been fairly lucky in all this. The two lines I have to take to get to the train station for work are working relatively well. My train has been almost 45 minutes late on a couple of occasions, but never once did I fear for my life. Until last night.

I am, of course, exaggerating. But it was a pretty intense situation. I went to a concert last night in the north of Paris. As a sidenote, it was the band Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and they were fantastic. So I arrived in St. Lazare, the train station, from work. I was in the north already, so I didn't really think it was a problem to get to the concert. I had to make two transfers to the venue. With the first train, I lucked out. I jumped on a crowded train immediately with no waiting. The second train was another story. I got to the platform and it was pretty full. It was about 6:30 and I needed to be somewhere for 7:30. No big deal. Tons of time.

no.

the train came around 6:50. It was packed. Sardine packed. I'm second from the front of the platform, so I figured I was getting on. After 2 minutes of people just trying to disembark, all of a sudden what felt like a vacuum or a strong undertow overtook me and i got sucked away from the doors. Instantly, the train was packed. A metro worker came around to manually close the doors because people were hanging out. That train left, and I was still on the platform. Stupid me didn't check the actual address of the venue; i just knew the metro stop where I was meeting missy and phil. so walking wasn't really an option. i waited another 15 minutes and a train came. This time, I was getting on the train regardless. I ignored the fisticuffs going on near the other doors because people were fighting to get on and off and just maintained my focus on my goal; cramming myself on this already crammed train. So i jumped on and was barely in. Luckily, I got some help from the 10 other people that come on behind me so I was wedged in nicely. I am not exaggerating about the close proximity. This is what I was able to do whilst waiting for my stop.

1)Feel the physical motion of breathing from the man behind me.
2)Have my cheek pressed against a strangers face because someone was holding the pole in such a way that I has incapable of movement
3)Feel the ass muscles of the man in front of me flex continuously

Far too intimate encounters for the first meetings. I mean, I didn't even get dinner first.

At last, I did manage to get off the metro with fairly little hassle. It was probably similar to what it would feel like to be conscious during the journey through the birth canal. But i did get free with my person intact. Early too somehow. We managed to have 15 minutes to eat tasteless paninis in the rain before enjoying the opening act of very heavy french metal-rock, and having ourselves some expensive pints.

The concert was quite amazing. The actual place was wicked, and I had a really good time, despite a brief loss of consciousness. They played most of my favourite songs and they were really good live.

here is a picture of my boyfriend. I haven't gotten around to telling him yet though. i think he'll be cool with it if i tell my family we're soul mates and tattoo his name across my chest. who doesn't love crazy?



I will also add this picture phil took, because i think it looks cool. you should always do things if they make you look cool.



and those are my adventures with Parisian transit strikes. hopefully i will not have any more to tell. but i strongly doubt this.

to sarkozy, and the unions i say this:
je vous deteste
you flippin' asshats

strikes, ahoy!

this is just a quick post to say the trains are going on strike. again. starting tomorrow evening. hopefully it will extend until friday because i don't feel like working. ever.

oh, and some students are on strike. i'm not sure why. but it means that sometimes the universities are shut down and they sit on rail lines to prevent trains from coming in. oddly enough no one ever seems to know why all this strike stuff is going on. and no outlets seem to be reporting it, but everyone knows when the strike will start. i need to find my way into this underground french information centre so i know whether or not i need to be waking up at 6:30 on friday morning. maybe it has something to do with being able to understand and speak french...

here's to hoping sarkozy keeps pissing off the union heads

Bordeaux

Well, it’s back to work for me today. The vacation is over. France has random holidays all the time, which works out well for me. We just had a week and a half off. I didn’t do a whole lot. From Sunday to Tuesday, Missy and I went to Bordeaux. It’s about a 3-hour train ride. The ride there wasn’t the greatest. It was early in the morning and there were screaming children the entire way. Also, this old woman stole my window seat and I didn’t have the balls to tell granny to move it. I am out of practice lugging a backpack, so we set out to find accommodation immediately upon arrival. We found a hostel following some signs. Our hostel mate was a Scottish girl who grew up in Germany. She was quite nice.

Our first day in Bordeaux, Missy and I wandered around the city. Once you get away from the train station and a bunch of sex shops, the city is quite nice. We wandered around downtown and booked a wine tour for the next day. There was a little festival going on, so Missy and I were able to go on a Ferris wheel! And we had a giant chichi, which is a deep fried sugar stick. Mmmm healthy.

On Monday, as I said, Missy and I went on a wine tour. We went to a region close to Bordeaux called Blaye. We went to two chateaus. The first one explained to us how the wine was made. It was in English, but I still didn’t understand half of it. Then we got to taste both white and red wines. The price was a little out of our league to actually buy the wine. We don’t normally go above 3 euros (yes, it’s that cheap here). The second chateau was nice as well. The woman there explained to us about the vines. Then we had some Merlot. Again, it was out of our price range, but it was tasty. We got to see a lot of the French countryside. It’s really quite different from anything I’ve ever seen. Really pretty and picturesque.

On Tuesday, Missy and I again, as we did Monday morning, walked down the supposedly longest pedestrian shopping street in Europe. It was a bit dodgy near our end, but gets quite posh once you get more near the classy part, or the ‘Bourgeois’ part as our internet-setting-up French fellow described it. That day we went to St. Emilion. The train station is literally in the middle of nowhere (you will see in the pictures I’ll put up). So missy and I basically had a St. Emilion photo shoot walking in and out of town. It’s a pretty walk though, and it’s not that far. St. Emilion is a medieval town, much like Eze, which I visited in the south of France my first time around. It seemed more authentic though. We wandered around taking pictures, and we went on a tour of the underground monuments. The tour was in French but the guide spoke every language imaginable, so he would break off sometimes and explain it to us in English. Oh! My favourite part of the trip! Missy had read that the bell tower in the centre of town gives a nice view of the surrounding countryside. We couldn’t find a way in, so we asked at the information centre if we were able to go up. The guy hands us the bloody key to the ancient tower and charges us each a euro, telling us to lock the door behind us. So Missy and I were able to climb and play in this ancient tower by ourselves. It was quite bizarre, and possibly the best thing ever.

So it was a nice little break for us to get away. It did make me miss Paris though. I really love this city. We have no immediate travel plans, but Missy keeps talking about England, so we’ll see. Also, I’ll be home in no time. I get back on December 20, and I’m there until January 9th. I can’t believe how fast this is going!

Till next time