Onzieme semaine....is that how you spell it??

Bon soir tous!

Well, at least, it’s “bon soir” for me. I have just gotten back from a 12 hour traveling day! It has been quite a week!

Last Tuesday, the university “voted” and decided to do a “blocage,” that is; the students decided to close the university and go on strike. They had an assembly in the courtyard and at first, had people raise hands for the blocage and against the blocage, and then, after that didn’t work (of course..! Are they ridiculous..? They DID actually try to count everyone one-by-one), they divided people up by sides. Pretty much they said, “well, it looks like there is more people on this side and therefore, BLOCAGE!” Yeah, lame. I know. I was and still am against the blocage because I don’t want the university to close! Number one, this is where I get my French experience, see my friends, and speak and hear French! Number two, the French students aren’t paying UC fees like we are…I pay good money for my education (theirs is obviously free…they can’t argue, but I can!) and I want to go to school! And although they link the blocage to whether you are against Sarkozy or for Sarkozy, they shouldn’t. Because preventing people from learning and annoying others isn’t, in my opinion, the best way to show you don’t want higher education fees or the privatization of your university. But whatever, it’s hard to argue against them. They have a different mentality (although I found plenty of French students with similar thoughts to mine!) So after they made the decision to block the school, the students kicked out all the students and teachers from the buildings (completely disrupting any class that was in session) and started piling up tables and chairs in front of the doors, blocking their access. I almost got locked in because I had gone inside to check with the Centre de Californie for a little bit and I couldn’t find an exit! Luckily, there was one in the building still open and I could use that. Then they chained the doors shut and now there are students living outside of them, not letting anyone in.

Classes were cancelled until Friday when they had another vote. I actually wasn’t here for that vote, being on a random train to Nice, but they voted to keep the university closed until Wednesday when they will vote again. For the rest of the week, I studied and tried to get some more work done at the Bibliothèque Municipale de Bordeaux (main library in Bordeaux) for my paper on Giotto for my art history class. I also went shopping with a friend for someone’s birthday and then just met up with other friends for coffee. Although it seems to be nice not having school, it isn’t. I like school. I hope it reopens soon. We have exams coming up!! And the professors have nothing to do with the blocage…they were kicked out of their own classrooms by the students! It’s kinda scary because the students have so much power over the university…! They seriously dictate whether the university remains open or not. The police haven’t even come yet, although my friend said they probably would. I’m sure they are busy with all the grèves at the train station. Which is a nice lead in to my next story…I tried to go to Nice this weekend, and although I succeeded, it wasn’t easy (or that nice…haha. Yeah I know, I’m not punny).

I had been planning on going to Nice for the past 2 months when I bought my train tickets (for really cheap too!) and was meeting my friend from UCSD there (she was flying from Sweden with her friends). Unfortunately, while about 12 other universities, including mine, were on strike in France, there was another grève starting. A national train strike. Oh fun times. Joyous. So, SNCF, the train company here in France, went on strike starting Tuesday night. Now, train strikes here don’t necessarily mean that all trains are cancelled. I know, it’s weird. It’s a strike, but not. Some trains run and some don’t, but you never know which ones will or when the grève will end. They vote everyday at 5pm to see whether they want to continue their train strike…oh so organized and you don’t know which trains are running until the morning, or maybe the night before. But anyway, I had no clue whether my train would run or not but soon found out that night before my train was supposed to leave. It was cancelled. But I found another path to Nice. I could take a train from Bordeaux to Paris at some ungodly hour in the morning, and then change train stations in Paris and take another train form Paris to Nice. So, that was my plan. To add to the adventure, my French dad let me know that there was (and still is) a metro strike in Paris….oh great. This will make things even more fun. I only had an hour between my trains to change stations and without the metro, it had to be either the bus or a taxi (and I’m really poor right now so that wasn’t making me any more happy). So, I stayed at a friend’s house in the downtown area that night and then woke up at 4am, took the first tram to the train station at 4:45am and got on a train to Paris at 5am. I got to Paris a half an hour late (they are on strike…they don’t really care) and so I only had a half an hour to change stations. So, taxi. But the taxi didn’t come until 9:13 and my train left at 9:34 and if you have ever been to Paris, traffic is not light! I got there at 9:30, my taxi driver rushing like mad the entire way, ran around the train station finding my platform and just barely made my train, totally out of breathe and exhausted (and out 13 euros for a taxi ride).

I got to Nice, found my hostel, found my friends and we had a grand time. We went to the beach, I saw the cool Russian church I wanted to see, the Musèe Matisse and the Archeology museum, including more ancient Roman ruins (I told you…they were everywhere!), the Chateau (had to climb an extremely large hill to get a pretty pleasing view), some more beautiful churches (although we went at the wrong time on Sunday since they were all about to start mass and I didn’t really get to walk around and look at the art) and saw some of the night life as well (bars and live music). It was on Sunday where things started to get stressed since my train back wasn’t running either and the people who were at the train station told me that the only train that was going to Bordeaux was not until Monday from Marseille at 6am. I asked explicitly about a Paris to Bordeaux train and they said there were none, just the Marseille one. So I went to the bus station and found the schedule to get a bus to Marseille (the only way to get there) for that night. The schedule for Sunday said the last bus was at 20h24. Since it was Sunday, no one was working at the bus station (the office was closed) and so I couldn’t ask anyone to verify it for me. But I was pretty sure I could read. So, I went out, had a lovely day, and then went to the bus station to find….no bus. A bus from Marseille arrived and I asked the driver when he would be leaving again and he said he was done for the night. When I confronted him about the schedule at the office, he just shrugged it off saying that he just drives when he was told and he doesn’t know anything about that schedule. I asked another guy there if I was reading the schedule correct and he said he agreed with me that the bus should have been here…so, I have no clue what happened. Actually, I know what happened. They are wrong. That’s what happened.

So, I thought it was too cold to sleep out on the streets (the train station closes at 1am and the airport was too far away), so I went back to my hostel and asked if I could stay another night. Luckily the guy let me, but after a frantic text message to one of my friends in Bordeaux to find information on trains to Bordeaux on the internet, I found out that there was another train to Bordeaux the next day! She gave me a plan and I would have to catch a train at 7am the next morning. So, I forfeited my deposit on my keys (therefore, not only wasting money on an extra night I didn’t plan in Nice, but giving up my deposit because of an early train I didn’t know about and apparently, the people who work for SNCF didn’t know either), and caught the train to Paris. My friend texted me that I could take this train to Paris, change train stations, and take another train to Bordeaux. It was the exact same route I took to get to Nice. Ridiculous. I got into Paris (late again, of course), and even though I had 2 ½ hours between my trains, I just made it to my second train in time after a long bus ride through Paris (I didn’t have money for a taxi...just enough to eat once for the day!). So, I got in around 7pm, took a bus home, and now am sitting in my PJs, showered, warmer (but still cold) and exhausted (even though I managed to sleep a lot on the trains).

I guess the trip had its ups and downs, but I have just learned from my other friend that there will be a tram strike in Bordeaux tomorrow and possibly one with the buses. So, I might be stranded at home. Well, I don’t have school, so it doesn’t matter…and I guess I would rather be stranded at home, warm with food, then in Nice, poor and hungry.

A plus,
Sherilyn