6-9 June 2016
The beginning of this week was pretty uneventful, with the exception of the continued flooding in Paris. Some of the train lines were not running at all while some were partially open. Generally, the metros that cross under or run along the Seine are what flooded and are the ones which are only partially open. Here’s to hoping the RER C is opened on Friday so we can get the train station (Gare de Austerlitz) for our trip to Bordeaux.
While the flooding was still bad, at least it stopped raining cats and dogs this week. It has begun to allow the river to recede.
This week we also got the notice to get our Residency Cards next week! I am so excited. This also means Jer can get a job!
Also this week, the Frenchies are having a ton of strikes (again). I swear something has been on strike every day we have been here. There are proposed labor law changes that would eliminate the beloved 35-hour work week (so anything over 35, you get as vacation later on, so for example for each 40-hour work week, the person would accumulate 5 hours of vacation) and make it easier to hire and fire employees (right now if you quit, you have to give 3 months’ notice). So on strike this or next week, in some capacity are: 1) Train employees 2) Metro employees 3) Garbage services 4) Airline pilots for Air France. Fun times! And this is all while the Euro Cup is starting in France. So there are more people, making more garbage trying to get around more but there are not enough trains and the garbage is on the street corner. Looks like it’s going to be a congested, hot, smelly city for a while. Ooo lala.
The one fun thing that happened this week was that for work, we had a staff day. It was very secretive. We were given a location to meet and then found out we were going to ‘Escape the Room’ French style. This meant, everything was in French but my colleagues (who I never met before) translated almost everything for me. We did succeed to escape the room both times (with 9 seconds and 1 minute to spare, respectively).
We then headed to a roof top bar, Le Perchoir, which had amazing views of the city. It is also super ‘chic’ or so I was told by the staff. It was a great event for me to get to meet a lot of new people in my group at work. Eventually, the roof top party moved downstairs to where there was a DJ. All I’m going to say is that the French, at any age, love to dance. I tried to get home at a reasonable time to head to Bordeaux in the AM. Funny enough Jer and I were actually able to meet right at Trocadero because he had gone to meet a friend at a bar down the street and as I was coming home from my event he was heading home from the bar the same way. It was nice to have him meet there to walk home together as at the same time the big concert kicking off the Euro Cup had just let out as well. This created a lot of craziness as people tried to get home.
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| Sunset from the rooftop bar in Paris |
– Kasey
Thursday Step Count: 12,286, 9.5 km
Le tour de walker 