WARNING: this post is just an excuse to bitch and moan. If you're not in the mood for that today, it's OK if you just decide to move on. I don't blame you.
This morning, the transit workers are pretty much back to work 100% although officially I don't think the strike is quite "over" and some negotiations are still in progress. I took a metro across town this morning followed by a bus, and really it was very nearly completely normal for rush hour, perhaps just a little more crowded on the metro than usual. But much better, and thank you very much to the workers who voted to return to their jobs.
Last night was a whole other story, and this is where the bitching and moaning comes in. It took me 2 HOURS AND 20 MINUTES to get from my place to Georges' house, on the same route where it took me only about 35-40 minutes this morning. What the hell! (And Yes, I realize this kind of goes against the "I'm so grateful" theme I wrote about yesterday. But sometimes annoying things happen even when you are busy being thankful, and you just have to blow off some steam.)
It started out fine. I sprinted (and getting pretty good at it, too) a block and a half to catch the 95 bus near my place, and it got me up to Saint Placide in the 6th in fairly normal time, given there was a little extra Friday evening traffic on the streets. At Saint Placide, I always change to the #4 metro there, which takes me all the way to the 18th, to within 1.5 blocks of Georges' house.
This is where the trouble started. The #4 was running trains every 7 minutes (the norm is 4 minutes but with the strike every 7 was actually very good). The problem was with what stop I was trying to get on. The stop just BEFORE Saint Placide (a small, normally low volume stop) is Gare Montparnasse. And what was obviously happening is that too many people were crammed onto the trains at Montparnasse, and NO ONE was getting off at Saint Placide.
I waited while THREE trains came and went, and just wasn't one of the lucky ones who managed to squeeze into the already WAY too overcrowded sardine-can cars when one or three people got off. (On one train, I saw that the conductor had actually allowed about 5 passengers to ride in the cabin with him!) Meanwhile more and more people were flooding into Saint Placide behind me.
Finally I decided I needed another strategy. I went back up to the street and caught another 95 bus (rather quickly) and decided to try the #4 stop at Saint Germain-des-Pres, where I expected MORE people would get off to make room for those who wanted to get on. My backup plan was, if this was not working, I could re-board another 95 bus which would take me to the 18th and then I would have a 10-minute walk to Georges' from there. Not ideal because with cross town traffic it would take at least an hour from Saint Germain by bus, but better than not getting there at all.
And not getting there at all was not an option. Not only did I want to see Georges but I had agreed to stay with his son for an hour or so while Georges attended a meeting of a parents' committee at his son's school. So I had to be there by 9pm. I had left my apartment at 6:30. It was already getting close to 8pm and I wasn't even across the Seine yet!
Sad to say, the situation at Saint Germain-des-Pres was no better. I waited for two trains and could NOT get on, so I gave up. Back up on the street I looked toward the taxi stand and there was a long line but no taxis. Back to the bus stop in front of the church.
Where, all of a sudden I saw a #39 bus, which I am not familiar with but whose final destination was Gare du Nord! This is only 4 stops from Georges' place on the #4 metro and acting on instinct I hopped on it, figuring that this might still be faster than waiting for the next 95 bus.
It proved to be the right decision. But still, with the extra heavy auto traffic caused by the strike plus it being a Friday night rush hour, there was a large part of the trip the bus could only crawl along, despite having access to bus-only lanes on the larger boulevards (some drivers cheat and go in those lanes anyway and then get stuck in traffic, same as everyone else). I got to Georges' at 8:45pm, just enough time for him to show me what he had made for dinner (he and his son had eaten of course), for him to put the boy to bed, and dash to the meeting which luckily for him was a block away.
Nearly 2.5 hours to travel what is essentially just a few miles. Paris is not that big a city. In 2.5 hours I could drive from New York City to Philadelphia, a distance of 95 miles, and this with the usual nightmarish New Jersey highway traffic!
Suffice to say, waking up today to find that the striking workers had decided to go back to work was very welcome news. Because this whole thing was really getting OLD for the rest of us. And I only had to deal with things like this intermittently -- not like Georges and others who had to commute to work every single day, not knowing when or how or even IF they would get to work, or home again, on a daily basis for the past 10 days. Enough is enough. I hope this is really the end of it.
OK, I feel much better now for having whined for a few minutes. And tonight, at least, I can go out for dinner with one of my friends, and can also enjoy my weekend plans with Georges, secure in the knowledge that for the first time in nearly two weeks we won't have to make ourselves crazy just for the chance to go out and have a normal life. Because the trains and buses are finally on track again.
