Spectacle in Sevres?!

It turns out Sevres DOES have more then a few inhabitants and right now they are all lined up outside my backyard watching the 20+ fire trucks lining my street. Coming home from class today, I was greeted with a road full of lights and men in black and yellow. My house backs to the street and is perched on a hill above it, so I decided I would go home to see what was happening instead of join the dozens of Sevrians craning their necks. Sure enough, when I opened my back window I saw the line of black smoke coming out of the apartment complex directly across the street. I decided to follow suit and watch the event unfold from my window. I even broke out some popcorn. Nobody was wheeled away in a stretcher but they did put the ladders up to the windows a few times. About an hour later, the trucks are still there but the smoke is just barely visible.

Climbing the ladder!

They went on like this for 3 blocks!

This week seems to be full of tragedy. On Sunday night, I returned home from a run along the Seine with my friend Evan (Canadian) pretty shaken up. Often (and by 'often' I mean once every 2-3 weeks) I have arrived at the metro station to find a crowd of people waiting on the platform for a delayed train. The announcement on the loud speaker is usually something to the tune of "Il y a une grave accident avec une voyageur..."- "There is a serious accident with a voyager..." I had always assumed that it meant that someone was sick or fainted until Lyndsey told me that it was widely understood to mean that some one had committed suicide. After that, everytime it happened I would get chills. You could see it in the faces of the others on the platform too...to be late for work because someone decided to jump in front of a train. On Sunday night--I was on that train. We had just taken off to the next stop when there was a thump and a yell from the driver--as I was in the front car...we could hear it pretty well and everyone froze. They only stopped the car for about 20 seconds and then continued to the next station. For a few minutes I was unsure if anything had actually happened. Sure enough, when we got to the next stop, the driver jumped out (with the whitest face I have ever seen), used the emergency phone, and told everyone to unload onto the platform. Another man came running, said some things really fast to the driver and jumped in to take the empty train away. The driver grabbed all of his stuff and booked it out of there, he was really shaken up. So there I was...standing on a platform with 70 other people just waiting--thinking-- The way that they reacted was like clockwork. It was so bizarre to me to get on to another train 15 minutes later and be on my way home...

On a lighter note-- It turns out that Sarkozy (the French President) and Bush are now BFF's. I'm not sure what to think about this but it makes an entertaining read. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/06/AR2007110602756.html?hpid=artslot