Paris Transport Strikes and La Fonderie

Today there were major transportation strikes all across France, including in Paris. These were related to wanting to keep a 35 hour work week, while maintaining the same cost of living allowances. This wasn't the best timing, as the Olympic committee has 10 members here for 4 days looking at Paris as one of the five finalists for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. The other candidates are New York, London, Madrid, and Moscow.

The strikes affected my trip from home to the Fonderie meeting tonight. What normally takes 15 minutes took nearly an hour. There was major gridlock at the Gambetta Circle, the 2nd of 7 stops on my route.. It was so blocked up that it was humorous (as I had a seat on the bus). Once we got past there, the next 5 stops went by quickly.

The strikes kept some of the Fonderie regulars away. However, we were blessed to have a number of visitors, including Stephen and Stephanie Johnston. I worked with Stephen & Joy Johnston at Espace Evangile, a church in the 6th district, for 4 years (2003-2007) and learned load from them about Parisien upper class preChristians. Stephanie, who was just a little squirt when I first met her, is now a tall, intelligent, and sharp-looking freshman at Wheaton College (and on spring break this week back home in Paris).

Florence DeMaret shared about her profession as a cartoonist. Jim Beise gave the primary talk, as Olivier Arnera cancelled out for tonight and will come instead in 2 weeks. During his talk, Nicole gave me an emergency phone call, as Joel had thrown up several times at home. So I had to skip out of the meeting to get home to help.