All week long we have been warned of the metro strike that was to take place on “Black Thursday,” yesterday. Classes resumed, work continued and people found their way into Paris one way or another. Transportation unions from all over the country marched in the streets near the Bastille claiming that retirement at 55 and full pension benefits weren’t quite enough. I spent the night at Lyndsey’s house in the 9th District. (It was still a 45 minute walk to class, but it was better then the 2-hours I would have had to walk from Sevres.) Lyndsey is in the same 8am class as me so we had an early start. Even though we had to walk the entire way in the dark (The sun doesn’t rise on Paris until just before 8), the overall atmosphere was almost festive. We joined hundreds of other Parisians on their way to class and work, crossing the Seine together with the first break of dawn. My French professor wasn’t able to make it in for my 12:45 class because she lived in the suburbs (near me) but my 5pm presentation on Queen Elizabeth I went on without interruption.
Other then a few hundred extra people and bicycles in the streets, the day went on pretty normally. It wasn’t until after I emerged at 7pm from my Great British History course that I realized what living in the suburbs REALLY means. When the strike didn’t end at 4pm as originally indicated and when the man at the window of the metro station told me that there was no telling when the strike would end now, it finally started to make me a bit annoyed. I had two options: 1) to lug my laptop, backpack (with 2 textbooks), and bag of clothes from the night before, 2 hours across Paris and into the suburbs in the dark OR 2) to call Lyndsey and wander the 45 minutes back up to Montmartre. Seeing as I still had no idea when the strike would end and I had class the next day, I imposed myself on Lyndsey’s seemingly unending hospitality yet again. On Wednesday night, we planned it all out and had whipped up the closest thing to a homemade American pizza we could come up with and watched an Audrey Hepburn film-- but last night we settled for cereal and Gilmore Girls reruns. As I hadn’t expected to spend two nights in Paris, I hadn’t brought the text I needed to prepare for my class today at 2:45 so I was perfectly content to spend a night relaxing and chatting about American sports (Lyndsey is from Florida—and is justified in her UF-pride). I’m hoping that my professor will understand and NOT give a pop quiz today. As of now, only a few metros are running (and on very limited schedules...none of which, however, in the direction of Sevres). Poor Carly was trapped in Sevres all day yesterday (luckily her class WAS cancelled) and will have to make the 2 hour walk this morning to our class this afternoon. I’m counting on the lines opening up again after class but if not, we can wander home together tonight.
This week has been full of obstacles—but most of them my own making. So instead of complaining, I just get to laugh. Right now the laughs are the frustrated kind, the ones you feel in the pit of your stomach, but in a few months or weeks even, I’m sure I’ll think they really are funny. I signed up to present in two classes this last week. This explains my absence. From Sunday morning until Monday at 5pm (when I had to leave for Climbing), Carly and I were hermits in Sevres, working and researching, running and sleeping. For my presentation on Queen Elizabeth I, my teacher had recommended a novel to be one of the 20 sources I was to reference. After searching for the book in 2 English bookstores and the Sciences Po library, and coming up fruitless, I was thrilled to find the 250 page book on an online library and spent much of the weekend staring at my computer screen. On Tuesday afternoon, I finished and decided to find the citation for my bibliography. You can only imagine my frustration when I found that the book I had been reading had been mislabeled and that I had spent a beautiful weekend INSIDE reading the WRONG book! I spent 4 hours that afternoon scrambling from bookstore to library to bookstore all over Paris completely unsuccessful, and returned home at 10pm to write a long letter to my professor and then to complete my other presentation to be given the next morning at 8am.
24 hours later, I was sitting on Lyndsey’s bed watching Audrey Hepburn finally able to relax. My presentation that morning went well, my professor had e-mailed back completely supportive of the research I had done and told me to go ahead and present on what I had already read, and I had spent 6 hours in the library typing up the dreaded mess of thing. Funny enough, I am now more then ever, interested in Queen Elizabeth and even ordered the correct book online to read later this semester. So that was obstacle number 1.
Obstacle number 2 is perhaps the biggest head-banger—most likely because it has yet to be solved. The week of October 31st, we have a “reading break” from school and Steph (who has the same break) and I thought we would use a bit of it to see another part of France and take a break from the city. We decided on a trip to the Champagne region because it is close and tickets are pretty cheap. Yesterday afternoon I went to book the train tickets online. I unknowingly typed the destination as “Champagne” in reference to the region, booked the tickets, paid for them, and checked the confirmation e-mail only to find that I had indeed booked tickets to Champagne, Champagne the city---in Normandy (it is an itsy bitsy town near the west coast, no where near the vineyards and rolling hills just outside of Paris)!! The website says that I should be able to exchange or cancel them for reimbursement but is not working properly—so, this afternoon, I get to WALK—no metro—to the nearest train station…all because I don’t know my geography.
This week hasn’t been ALL stress though: On Saturday, C, L, and I went to the annual wine harvest festival in Montmartre. The streets were lined with wine vendors, cheese vendors, escargot vendors, roasted chestnut vendors, musicians, costumed actors, etc…all surrounding Sacre Coeur. The festival lasted the entire weekend and I think that at one point or another every Parisian probably wandered over. Normally I would say that crowds and full glasses of red wine don’t mix, but as always, Parisians have a natural grace and we left a few hours later, completely stainless. If you are ever in Paris during the 3rd week of October, you can’t miss this. It was Paris in all of its glory.
To add to this already patriotic day, we rushed over to the Champs de Mars (the park under the Eiffel Tower) at 6pm—still 3 hours before the kick off of the France-England semi-finals rugby match—only to squish onto a blanket with a few friends who had set up an hour earlier. The field was packed, another complement to the Parisians—they can always fit 1 more in to a metro, building, field…no matter how squished you may think it is. Thousands and thousands of rugby fans decked out in blue and red (though some of the red were British), carrying, berets and cardboard swords, and armed with baguettes, cheese, wine--and more McDonald carry-out bags then I want to recognize—all SAT down to watch the game. I have never seen this anywhere else. If you stood up, you were immediately berated by dozens of angry fans—if you know better, you stay put—no bathroom breaks, no stretching…this is serious stuff. Even though France lost, it was still one of my favorite experiences so far. When we left, we had to walk in zigzags all the way to the metro as the ground was absolutely covered in trash, bottles, empty McDonald bags, etc…Somebody else would clean it up before the morning---they love their parks too much.
Ready for the big match hours ahead of time...seriously thousands of people.
Lyndsey and Carly REALLY got into...I'm proud to say I didn't quite look like that. Ha!
I also got a chance to show some Colorado spirit this week when I received an e-mail from my family---ROCKIES WON!! WE ARE GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES!! When I finally made it to school on Tuesday morning and had a chance to share my excitement, I was met by blank stares and “what’s the World Series?!”—Okay, I guess this is something I have to save for the Americans. So, this is a shout out to back home for our wild card of a team. Go Rockies!
Carly and I with at our wine-tastings!
1 comment:
Again Cassie, I say, WOW, I am so jealous of all you are seeing and doing. Not necessarily all of the challenges, but you also seem to be handling them well. I have been to the Champagne region, another story I won't write here, I would highly recommend a trip there. You inspire me to do things outside my comfort zone. GO ROCKIES!!!
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