metro.

as in any city, public transportation has become my bff. wooo. i live on a bus line, l'92, that takes me directly to school, and i live just one transfer away on the metro. i have become accustomed to taking the metro, and have a similar enough schedule to dana that we took it together to class on monday. tuesday, today, i was on my own.

while i have had NO difficulty thus far... today, of course, the day i was alone... it began. as i boarded the metro i was relieved to see it was not jam packed, per usual. as i caught up on messages from the night before, as i slept those in the us ate dinner, and carried on their nights regularly. then the announcement came.

bleh bleh--solid string of french--bleh bleh... opera... bleh bleh... ligne ##... bleh... un accident.

f it.

some announcement, about some metro line, due to some accident. MY STOP. opera is where i transfer lines! lskfjskldjf. you can imagine my stress level. i know NO other way to get to school, especially once ON the metro. in my intensive elementary french... we have not covered numbers yet. all i knew was some line, coming from my transfer stop... was closed (maybe??) due to un accident. with nothing else i could possibley do. i ignored it. continued to catch up on messages and proceeded to get off at opera.

as i walked to the ligne 8, i was relieved to see a train pull up. i arrived at french class 125 A on time and sat down to find myself with this message written on the white board:

le trafic est interrompu entre stalingrad et chaussee d'antun suite a un accident grave de voyageur a la station poissousiere.

on day one of french 125A we had been told that if we see any signs or hear anything in french we should jot it down and bring it to class so we can learn. as you can see from the french she wrote, and the french i heard... i would not have been very helpful.

however, she had taken the metro as well, from a different line, and the message translates:

the traffic is interrupted between stalingrad and chassee d'antun following a bad accident of one of the travelers at the poissousiere station.

these stops are on the 7 line, a line that you CAN transfer to from my transfer stop: opera.

TG i figured that out in time... not. but no harm no foul. just another day of being reminded how useful any education in french would have been before i arrived in paris. you win some you lose some.