Todays unfortunate adventure

Today is day 3 in a week that can only be described as exam hell. 5 days 5 tests each 3 hours long (plus the extra hour granted to us poor foreigners). By any testing standard it is brutal since classes ended last wednesday and we were given little time to study.



However this testing period has been particularly trying as last sunday (a week before exams) I was "fortunate" enough to come down with what turns out to have been a nasty case of strep throat. I went from being fine Saturday evening to a feverish, lung-hacking coughing, painful sore throat state of mess. Attempts to attend class monday (in the same condition plus a complete loss of voice) were thwarted by our loving secretary who quite rightly told me to go home. Three days later things seemed to be getting better but also progressively worse and sooff to the french "generaliste" doctor I go...the doctor who promptly informed me that my system was exhausted and my vocal chords shot. Medicine and bed rest it is...and absolutely no talking for a couple days. Fine by me, I need to study. Friday was the first day I got in a productive day of studying, and thus the scramble to learn 5 subjects in 3 days began.



So here we are again, day 3 (after that little digression) and I am off to school with my overnight bag packed for two days because our darling train system has decided to participate in the National Day of Strikes. Who the blazes gave the FRENCH a National day for striking when they do it all the time anyway?!?!? (how's that for the use of an interrobang) So...since the trains start their strike tonight and end friday morning and I still have an exam thursday and friday...I get to squat at a friend's.



Morning starts normally, I get up to finish the studying that hadn't been completed by 3am, get ready for the day, and head out the door. Phone call. Crap...that is NOT a good sign. What's the deal? Oh, just that the train tracks broke and no more trains out to Cergy since no trains are arriving from inside Paris. Time to try the suburb trains leaving from Saint Lazare. MASSIVE crowds at Saint Lazare...lots of angry, yelling, and pushing people. There is even some banging on the plexiglass windows to the "guichets" behind which the agents were most likely hiding. We see the train heading to Cergy is scheduled to leave in a couple minutes at the other end of the station...we'll never make it...and we didnt. The train doors were nearly slammed shut in our faces so close was our defeat.



Great. Exam now starts in half an hour...another friend was on the train when it stopped. SHE is stuck between two stations and after 45 minutes is forced off the train and told they will have to walk to the station on the train tracks. The station in the opposite direction from where she needs to go. This is NOT the way to start the day when you have an exam and cannot simply go home and crawl back under the covers.



The Saint Lazare guy is telling us to go back to La Defense, that there are trains at La Defense. I told him I don't believe him, that every time I get stuck in this situation (this is the third time this year I have heard that line) the people at La Defense say "go to Saint Lazare, there are trains at Saint Lazare" and like a fool you go to Saint Lazare where the helpful people say "there are no trains here, you must go to La Defense, there are trains at La Defense". (As I write this and as you read this please please be imagining like I am the smug little union train man with a heavy French accent calmly telling people "zere are no trains eere"). Anyway...I refused to go anywhere until this man got confirmation that "zere were indeed trains" at La Defense. Luckily I wasn't the only person who so cheekily informed him that we were tired of their shenanigans.



Several of us decide that instead of fighting our way back through the throng of people to get to the train going to La Defense we would hop on the train nearby that was going part of the way toward Cergy and then switch at a station later on. Our friend has made it out of the tunnels underneath Paris and is trying to find a way to get to La Defense to catch a train. The fastest way is to take the 8 then the 1 all the way to La Defense.



We manage to call a friend in class and explain to the professor that due to circumstances WAY beyond our control we will be late. Some of us will be VERY late. The exam has now started. Our train leaves, going in the right direction now...our friend calls again: the line 1 is closed because too many people are on it. Bloody hell. We tell her to go back to Saint Lazare and try to take a train to Cergy or to La Defense so she can take a train to Cergy from there. Trying to calm down and refocus in the train, put some of the information back in our heads. It is now 10 am and we are 30 minutes late.



Thank god for the foreigners in class who need extra time...our presence means it will be easier for the students who arrived late to make up the time lost in the train scramble. Does this mean I lose part of my extra time? Who knows for now.



We arrive in class at 10:15. A whole 45 minutes late. Two other students lucky enough to catch the train we missed arrived 25 minutes before. The one asked to treck through the tunnels is still trying to get here. Test time. The professor is nice, and has granted us all the time we needed (including the 45 minutes I lost). The secretaries have been helpful and offered to sit so the professor can get back to work. The last student arrives at noon, 30 minutes before the scheduled end of the exam. The professor is nice and arranges with the secretary to allow her to have the time needed to complete the exam.



Today's test is now over...time to study for tomorrow's. We are all squatting at Cergy tonight, no one wants to tempt fate with the trains again today.