Once again the entire transport industry has decided to strike. Of course that means vacation days for me since I learned during last month's strike that archives are closed and libraries don't deliver books on strike days. So not a huge deal really. Except that one of my sister's friends was in town for a scientific conference out in the suburbs on a train line that completely stopped running. So she came back into Paris last night to stay with me and then we had to walk down to her hotel by the Eiffel Tower. I would draw a map, but I am not so technically proficient with blogger to do that, however it is worth noting that the Eiffel Tower is across town. Two hours across town. And it's cold today. And I walked home again.
All of this to say that my bad hips are acting up again and I can now barely walk after going to her hotel and coming back home. Since the strike is being orchestrated by the train line unions, I think that they should then pay for my hip replacement surgeries when I need them... it feels like it could be in a few weeks! It has convinced me, though, that instead of trying to walk across the city to the library tomorrow, I am just going to work at home. I wish I had CBAM's heating pad though.
The students are also beginning their strikes now. Their favorite method is to block train stations and force them to shut down the electricity on the train lines, blocking entire regions. Except that's pretty ineffective if the train conductors are on strike. These unions should perhaps talk to each other in order to avoid such redundancy. But last night I was coming out of my class at the Sorbonne (yes I am taking a class at the Sorbonne) about 6 pm, and there was huge crowd of several hundreds of people blocked at the door. We were let out about ten at a time and then once we got out, I realized that police in riot gear had blocked off the entire street and were checking everyone's bags before they were let out of the street! Insanity! I felt for the first time like it was 1968 and they were waiting for students with bombs or something.
Anyway. Vacation day tomorrow with lots of yoga to try to stretch my body back out. Hope things in the US are going a bit better.
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How does this country function? I just don't understand it at all.
I hope you are feeling better soon though. You should definitely take advantage of the free vacation days you get when everyone goes on strike. They are guilt free days cause it's really not your fault that you can't do work.
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