Strike Three

And so it begins again. I do not know how many more posts I can fill with details about le greve, but this week offered some interesting stories filled with the increased unrest in France. Tuesday started the begining of a prolonged greve (There were posters everywhere pronouncing something like "Tuesday we take to the streets, the next days we do it again. Vive le greve!) for mostly the same reason: la retraite (retirement age). The trams continue to run fairly often, but they all stop a few stops away from le centre-ville because la manifestation blocks the tracks with their masses. Even a gated park nearby (where I sit and eat my new favorite treat: une tartine chocolate, so moist and chocolatey!) remained locked because apparently it was on strike too. On wednesday, les Nantais (people from Nantes) took a break and everything flowed smoothly, but today they are back in action. As I hopped on my tram this morning to go to class, I saw a crowd of University students creating a wall behind the tram, heading toward le centre-ville. One stop later, we approached another massive crowd of students who surrounded the tram on the front and the sides and walked beside the tram as it paced along at barely walking speed. Some of the students were banging on the sides of the tram and the windows with their hands or other objects, so I knew today they were a little more serious and fiesty. My host family told me that the manifestation is blocking either the gas or electricity plants (not quite sure which one exactly) which only have around a two day's supply of resources. Other IES students have told me they saw a small fire on the blocked tram tracks, and I have surely seen the greve-passion from all the flag waving participaters. Along with la manifestation, there are motorcycle and minivan cops at basically every corner around le centre-ville to contain the mobsters. This greve is supposed to be fairly active all week, and especially strong this Saturday. Many flights and trains are not running, the TGV from Nantes to Paris has very limited trips, and local transportation will not be very consistent during the weekend. I fly to Dublin tomorrow morning with some friends, so we are hoping that our bus to get to the airport is running, and that our plane will still take off as scheduled (I am flying with Ryan Air which has extremely cheap, but limited destination flights. For instance, I could fly from Nantes to Marseille for 20 euros round trip if I wanted. However, Ryan Air will no long be in France starting next year. C'est dommage for the French because it is truely a bon marche).

Also, during my tutoring/english speaking session this week, the young girl and I talked about how French is much harder than English (this is coming from a native french speaker) because of all the exceptions to the grammatical rules. Et ca, c'est vrai. I am really enjoying each conversation with her and her family because I continue to learn new words, french ideals, the french schooling system, and french views on the States. It is really interesting to see how English is taught in France. For the most part the grammar is correct, but just like how french is taught in the States, some of the phrases are not completely up to date. However, languages are taught much earlier in school and it seems to be more difficult and highly effective. In middle school, each language class is taught primarily in the foreign language which allows for at least a class period of emersion (in the States, my french classes have always been primarily taught in english, except for maybe the higher levels in college). The moral is: French language is hard, kids should start learning it earlier, and I am going to have bilingual kids.