STRIKE!

so here i am, right in the middle of my first real french protest, and i feel a bit cheated. i expected rioting in the streets, so many people on the bridges that i thought they would break, yelling throughout the night.

(oh, you're too lazy to read that whole article i linked and now you're confused? here, i'll give you the cliff notes version: sarkozy got into office and promised he would reform public retirement to match the benefits private workers get. this means that the public railway workers are getting shafted out of sweet pensions and don't get to retire early. they're pissed, so they shut down a bunch of metro lines/bus routes/trains. sarkozy isn't budging, so they're protesting tomorrow, too)

but i was largely unaffected today. i walked to my only class at 12:10 today, and then caught the metro back (yeah, still working, just 40 minutes between trains instead of 5). i went to hop on the metro at 7 pm tonight to go play some beer pong (gosh, i miss that game), but two girls walked out, looking really disappointed, saying it was closed. probably better, though, because i have a midterm tomorrow anyway. no big disruptions yet, though (least not for me...maddy and mal, who are supposed to go to lyon on the train tomorrow, might disagree :-/) i didn't see anyone running through the streets with a "screw you, sarkozy!" sign or anything, but maybe that's because i didnt walk around the city enough. maybe i'll explore it more tomorrow.

to change subjects completely (to quote dad), i'm going to copenhagen nov 9 to visit venz! this means i'll be in rome next weekend, copenhagen the weekend after, and london the weekend after that. ohhh europe, i love you.

OH and another fun thing. i'm still invading the nexus. you can go read my online column here.