Grave grèves

Hello, hello friends. I hope you've had a nice day wherein you needed not to walk for thirty minutes to a rendez-vous. As it so happens, however, I had to -- I missed the tram, and the screen informed me ever-so-kindly that another would not be coming for 24 minutes. Why on earth would it take that long for a tram to arrive, you ask? Well, to be fair I was forewarned, but curse that blasted optimism of mine. I received earlier this week an email from my overseas coordinator about that particular gem of French culture... no not Kevin Kline in that brilliant movie French Kiss (wait, he's not French?!), but rather strikes --

Dear Students:

As you have undoubtedly heard, a general strike has been called tomorrow [Thursday 18/10] in response to Sarkozy's proposed reform on the Régimes spéciaux. Despite legislation calling for service minimum (which actually won't go into effect until next year), you should expect little or no public transportation and plan accordingly.

For the moment it has been announced as a one-day event, but several of the SNCF unions have voted in favor of a grève reconductible meaning that this is probably not the last that we've heard from the cheminots. Organizers are hoping for a strong support of solidarity, so other public services are likely to be affected, too.

Enjoy your exposure to the French social model ;-) Courage!

The SNCF has little to do with my daily life; most unfortunate for commuters of course (though curses! for my class yesterday was not canceled, blast that solid tenacity of my professor who made it into the city!), but I was not traveling anywhere this week that called for regional trains. However, the transportation strike in Strasbourg today was by a PRIVATE company, who despite nice wages and benefits, apparently goes on strike from time to time. And, as I am currently sans vélo for rather silly reasons that cannot be remedied until I win the lottery or steal another bicycle, it is so that I must walk everywhere. After all, we don't want train conductors to have to work past 55-years-old, what with their demanding job of pushing buttons.

By the way, I like that Blogger's examples for "Labels for this post" include "scooters".

I want a scooter.

bisous,
Alison