Strike or Counterstrike?
0 Comments Published by Cedric Benetti on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 at 11/14/2007 05:49:00 PM.
Another day of strikes in France! Paris paralyzed once again by poor public transportation.
If you wanna take that metro today, think again!
The bus? My ass!
Trains? Haha, you*re funny!
Inter regional express trains? You gotta be kiddin me!
I was supposed to meet up with a friend for a gallery opening in the 14th, but getting there when only one metro train out of 10 works on the line (some lines got nuttin goin on at all) is a thing close to impossibility and I don*t really enjoy playing the sardines game, where you are pressed against and in between hundreds of people in a cramped metro where no one moves or breathes and where the closest thing you can do to have a bit of distraction is a game I use to play called "what did that smelly guy next to me have for lunch before not brushing his teeth?".
So once again people try to stay away from metro stations and prefer to walk in the streets, discovering their actual city in "above-ground" mode. "Oh so this is what the world looks like above my usual way to work".
I also considered walking. Walking to the 14th is big fun if you have an internal city map. If not, you*re fucked! Asking someone for the way today would only mean talking to a guy who never ventures outside his usual metro line and who is just as clueless as yourself...
Walking. A thing I*m doing more and more often for long distances recently since my freakin metro card has expired and I need to buy metro tickets by the unit like some cheap tourist!
At least there is someone reacting against this strike... sort of.
They try to put up a strike against the strike. How striking!
I may be there on this Sunday, to see what this "counter-strike" has to offer me that a regular strike can*t. Maybe some better coffee or a mobile bagel-stand?
Besides the transportation workers, students have shut down a dozen universities against separate reform legislation. Teachers, civil servants, magistrates and court clerks are also expected to go on strike later this month, joining the merry group, singing protest songs in the streets and drinking beer while providing a favorable breeding ground for future rioters who are always up in the first rows to throw love letters, poems, teddy bears and flowers at the special riot police forces (try to find the irony in this last part and YOU might be a winner!)
If you wanna take that metro today, think again!
The bus? My ass!
Trains? Haha, you*re funny!
Inter regional express trains? You gotta be kiddin me!
I was supposed to meet up with a friend for a gallery opening in the 14th, but getting there when only one metro train out of 10 works on the line (some lines got nuttin goin on at all) is a thing close to impossibility and I don*t really enjoy playing the sardines game, where you are pressed against and in between hundreds of people in a cramped metro where no one moves or breathes and where the closest thing you can do to have a bit of distraction is a game I use to play called "what did that smelly guy next to me have for lunch before not brushing his teeth?".
So once again people try to stay away from metro stations and prefer to walk in the streets, discovering their actual city in "above-ground" mode. "Oh so this is what the world looks like above my usual way to work".
I also considered walking. Walking to the 14th is big fun if you have an internal city map. If not, you*re fucked! Asking someone for the way today would only mean talking to a guy who never ventures outside his usual metro line and who is just as clueless as yourself...
Walking. A thing I*m doing more and more often for long distances recently since my freakin metro card has expired and I need to buy metro tickets by the unit like some cheap tourist!
At least there is someone reacting against this strike... sort of.
They try to put up a strike against the strike. How striking!
I may be there on this Sunday, to see what this "counter-strike" has to offer me that a regular strike can*t. Maybe some better coffee or a mobile bagel-stand?
Besides the transportation workers, students have shut down a dozen universities against separate reform legislation. Teachers, civil servants, magistrates and court clerks are also expected to go on strike later this month, joining the merry group, singing protest songs in the streets and drinking beer while providing a favorable breeding ground for future rioters who are always up in the first rows to throw love letters, poems, teddy bears and flowers at the special riot police forces (try to find the irony in this last part and YOU might be a winner!)
Labels: Nonsensical rambling, Sarkozyland
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