According to ye olde oracle, aka the RATP website, things are getting back to normal. And somehow the RER is back to normal overnight. Whatever. I just hope it starts working outside of Paris again so I can pick my mom up at the airport next week.
Anyway, the past couple days were marred by the transportation nightmare. Actually on Wednesday Paris 3 was still closed, so we had class at a cafe and MICEFA paid for our coffee. Not a bad deal. That afternoon my class at Nanterre was all systems go, but we had a to take a train there, a train that left at 2:06 and if we missed it, we'd be about an hour late to class. So I waited for the bus for a while, it came and was too full. Another one came, and I got on with my face practically smooshed against the doors. When we were about 5 minutes from Chatelet, the door closed across my big toe and effectively ripped off my cuticle. So there I am, stressed out, bleeding, and without much oxygen. This quickly turned into nausea and I was certain I was going to barf all over that bus. So at the next stop I hopped off and sat down to breathe for a few seconds. Luckily I was okay, so I ran over to Chatelet, on the 14, through St. Lazare, and onto the grossly crowded train just in time. After class Keisha and I took the bus all the way home, and I stopped off at the MICEFA "Thanksgiving" celebration. Which was one free cocktail and some potato chips. Oh well, the cocktail was good.
Thursday was another hellish day. I ended up going to bed late on Wednesday and then it was another 5:45 wake up call. Luckily, this time, a bus did come and I got a nice, easy ride to Chatelet in the early-morning, traffic-free streets. The train left at 7:07 and I was majorly early to work. The day was pretty normal, I taught Thanksgiving. Of course these poor kids just have blank and/or quizzical stares about the whole thing. But they grasped the concept of Pilgrims leaving England and setting up the first colony in America. I left out the religious problems, the long winter, and the part where they wiped out Squanto's tribe. We also made hand Turkeys, which were hilarious because these poor kids have no imagination. It took a good 15 minutes to make them realize it was a turkey, not just their hands. They were like "wait why do we put a beak on it? Should we draw finger nails?" And then of course they wanted to see mine so they could see exactly which colors to use and what pattern to put them in. I've never said, "whatever" and "no big deal" so much in my life as when I'm teaching these kids. No wonder they grow up to be grumpy, negative Parisians.
Anyway, after work I got to the train, got to Chatelet, but then there were no buses. Well it's a good 45 minutes from Chatelet to MICEFA, and I honestly tried, but as soon as I got to the Pantheon I made a left and hauled ass home. Sorry Professor. I was late already. When I got home the electrician was here fixing my hot water heater. Which wasn't broken so much as a switch had been flipped in the fuse box and it turned off. Um yeah I'm not a dumb blonde American or anything. But he's a cool guy who lives a block away and drives a scooter so it's not like he moved the Earth to get here.
The rest of the night I just talked on the phone to my mom and my brother and watched Ugly Betty. I downloaded the whole first season and it's pretty addictive. Yesterday was so weird because there are just no signs of Thanksgiving here, and no one understands. Hanukkah hopefully won't be as much as a problem, my mom will be around for the first few nights and we can go to Chez Hanna and eat falafel. I've kind of purged Christmas from my system since I haven't celebrated it in four years now. But yesterday morning at work when I was tired and hungry and stressed out, I was a little emotional about the fact that everyone got to go to my aunt's house and eat Matt's mom's bomb ass pumpkin pie last night. Even my cousin Ian managed to make it, and he lives in China. Here's to next year I guess.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment