La Grève Strikes Back

The official day of the transportation strike was sunny and carefree, and not much of an obstacle. The population expected the disruption of transportation services and could thus plan accordingly. However, the following day was overcast and dismal – in more ways than one. Services were expected to resume and so things would be back to normal…or so I, in true expat naïveté, thought.

I have a very full schedule that day: an 8-9:30 class in the 9th, followed by a 10-12 in the 15th, and finally a 1:30-4:30 back in the 9th. Metro services are therefore key, as I have to traverse almost the entire length of the city throughout the day. I first descend to the Metro at 7:40, expecting the normal 15-minute door-to-door commute to my early class. The LED arrival sign for the next two trains reads 17 minutes and 30 minutes. Uh oh. I text my student that I’d arrive a bit late; he kindly responds that I shouldn’t worry. It’s unusually cold in the Metro and I’m not dressed for 17 minutes of standing still, so I burrow deeper into my coat and pray the train will come faster. I’m already growing wary of the probable crowdedness of the train when the platform becomes increasingly populated. Lo and behold, the train pulls in, completely packed. I try to get inside, but there’s so little space the oxygen levels are probably running dangerously low. I decide to pass.

14 minutes later, the next train arrives, just as – if not more – crammed than the last. Again, I contemplate squeezing in, but the prospect of sardine-ifying myself to the point of breaking leaves a lot to be desired. I resign myself to not making my 8am class at all (after relating my fate to my student, he blithely texts back, “Welcome to France!”) and after another long wait (35 minutes this time), I figure I can comfortably (overstatement of the year!) get to my 10am class with time to spare. Train #3 arrives and I’m ready to crowd-surf my way in if I have to. I make it, my coat barely escaping getting stuck in the closing door. It’s so friggin’ packed, you can’t distinguish one body from another – the train car is a tangle of heads, limbs, scraps of clothing. A mood of grim resolve hangs over us. We’d just have to bear it for the length of our commutes. It sucks, but what can you do?

Luckily the windows in the train car are open to slightly relieve the stifling atmosphere. It also enables us to hear the reactions of the crowds waiting on each station’s platform. A chorus of groans, gasps, merde’s, and oh-la-la’s evoke some chuckles and knowing looks among those of us fortunate enough to be inside. Everyone is more than ready for a quick laugh – everyone except the one schmuck who has to get agro and start yelling at no one in particular to stop pushing him. Um, right buddy, they’re pushing. You.

Eventually I reach my stop. I’m shocked to notice that it’s 10:00 sharp. So much for an early arrival – it had taken me double the time to get to my destination than it should have. I figure my students have probably been experiencing the same transportation pains as me. Yes, indeed. Their office mates inform me that one has abandoned his commute altogether after being stuck in traffic for over an hour; the other is supposedly on his way. So I wait. And wait. And wait. Just after 11:00, I’m getting ready to leave, when he walks in, flustered, but willing to have his lesson.

An hour later, on my way to my school’s office site, I walk to the Metro hoping the train delays have eased up a bit. Surely, all it would take was a morning to get the massive urban underground rail network back up and running. Ha. I enter the Ecole Militaire station only to hear the station agent say, “Pas des trains.” (No trains.) “Pas des trains?” I reply weakly, unable to fathom that the situation had gone from terrible to incomprehensibly worse since the morning. A nearby youngish guy must think I don’t understand, because he says, “Madame, no trains – no trains!” I told him I understand…it’s just that I’m not too happy about the news. “Alors, c’est la grève,” he responds wryly. [His cynicism aside, most Parisians seem to accept the inconvenient, the inefficient, and the undeniably frustrating ramifications of the strike simply as an inevitability not worth whining about. In the States, people demand a supervisor at the drop of a hat. Here, the system is so large and cumbersome that people don’t even know how to ask for the supervisor.] With no other Metro lines close enough to take me to my destination (are they even working anyway?) I have no other choice but to share in the collective resignation and walk to my next teaching engagement.

It’s not such a bad walk. Sure, it takes me an hour, amid brisk winds and gray skies. Plus I have to literally eat on the go and wind up with crumbs all over me – as more couth Parisians no doubt note in passing, I ain’t a pretty sight. But I manage to catch some pretty city sites en route: the massive lawn and classic dome-topped façade of Hotel des Invalides, the romantically picturesque Pont Alexandre III replete with golden winged statues flanking the bridge spanning the Seine, two grand palaces on the Right Bank gracing the horizon. I take a less scenic bridge across the river, but it dumps me off at the hardly dumpy Place de la Concorde. I glance at he obelisque encrusted with hieroglyphs and cheery carousel overloaded with tourists and families. But I have no time to stop and really take it in – I’m danger of being late (again), and I’m paid by the hour, so on I trudge until I finally reach the office, with eight minutes to make copies and get a glass of water before jumping into my three-hour workshop on structuring discourse. Amazingly, half of the attendees actually show up, all on time.

Finally quittin’ time comes and I leave the office, spent and dreading the fiasco no doubt awaiting me in the Opéra Metro. And sure enough, the 8 line – the one that stops right around the corner from my home – is no longer running. Fabulous! I weigh my options: try the other metro stations nearby whose lines go even remotely close to home, or hit the streets for 50 minutes in less-than-desirable walking shoes. Cabs will be impossible to come by, and traffic is basically a parking lot all over the city anyway. It’s clear: I have to go on a trial-and-error Metro line recon mission.

I immediately strike gold with line 9. When I walk onto the platform, the LED arrival board reads 11 minutes. Not bad. I don’t even contemplate taking one of the available seats. I’m waiting on the edge of the platform and preparing myself to get on that train, whatever it takes. I am no longer above pushing and smushing. The day has steeled me against any physical discomfort. I can brave 15 oxygen-low minutes if it means I’d just get home already. It’s now a game of survival, and I’m going to be on the side of the fittest. Turns out I hardly need to try. When the train pulls in, the crowd behind me surges through the doors, nearly lifting me off the ground on its mad dash to get inside. Voila, I’m on board. Now all I have to do is ignore the fact that my head is jammed into someone’s armpit, my bum is pressed up against a man’s front (still shuddering in disgust over that one), and that although I have nothing to hold onto, the mass of bodies around me is literally fusing me into place.

It’s a tense 12 minutes until the stop before mine, when suddenly a third of my train car empties and I realize I can breathe again. Halle-friggin-lujah! The doors close and I’m buoyed by the knowledge that within moments I’ll be back above ground, where no striking public employees can any longer interfere with my day. Woo hoooo…huh? The train grinds to a halt and the lights go black. The announcement blares: it’s only a temporary problem, we’ll be on our way any moment now. Hopes dashed, the crowd groans and reverts to its former state of white-knuckled impatience. The train is all but silent, save for the synth-pop sounds of a young hipster’s iPod. What’s that song…I know that song…OMG. No way. “That’s all they really waaaaaaant, some fuuuuuuuuun…when the workin’ day is done oh girls they wanna have fu-uuun…” This is too much for me to take and I burst into delirious laughter. Now everyone on the train car is staring at me like I’m a raving lunatic. Come on, people, how can you not appreciate the absurdity of the situation, with the Cyndi Lauper cherry on top?

The train comes back to life and whisks me to Oberkampf, only a quick walk away from my place. I’m flooded with relief to get off the train so close to home, soaking up every gulp of fresh air. Exhausted, slightly traumatized, I slump into the apartment only to find N and his parents finishing up a day’s worth of home improvement projects and plans to cook dinner at home. Thank goodness for happy endings.