Capsule of Absurdity No. 3

Imagine yourself, lost in the middle of nowhere, with a flight to catch and with an incompetent French bus driver that doesn't know how to take you to the airport.

In this post I offer you une capsule d'absurdité. As I mentioned at the end of this capsule, here I will describe some events related to a strike day in Paris.

Strikes (grèves in French, scioperi in Italian, huelgas in Spanish) seem to be a sign of developed societies. They're one of the expressions of the liberty working classes have to complain and fight for their rights. Unfortunately, unions and associations often misuse such a liberty to annoy the rest of the world. In Colombia there are no strikes, at least not legal ones: when people start to protest and not working, the government declares the strike as illegal. This scares most workers, and pretty much everything goes back to normal. In fact, I don't remember a single legal strike in Colombia. More common are the so-called turtle operations, in which services are offered up to some partial capacity. So, for instance, a turtle operation in a hospital might involve only providing ER attention and/or only practicing a few, randomly chosen, more delicate procedures. Even if technically turtle operations are not strikes, they're as or more annoying than fully-fledged strikes.

Here in Italy transport strikes are becoming increasingly frequent. These are rather gentle strikes: since most of them are announced in advance, they don't cause big problems provided you plan your travel schedule in advance. (Of course, there have been more problematic strikes but those are less frequent.) Indeed, recent strikes seem to be extremely gently when compared with the French transport strikes. During a recent visit to Paris (on which I commented here and here) I had the wonderful experience of a reduced train strike in Paris.

It was indeed a very reduced strike (at least when compared to those that took place when Sarkozy got into office). Paris is served by two train companies: one for the metropolitan part, and another that connects Paris with neighboring towns such as Roissy (north, where the airport is located) and Orsay (south, where I was staying). It was the second company the one that decided to go to strike the Monday in which I was supposed to return to Italy. In practical terms, that meant that instead of having a boring, very long trip from Orsay to CDG, I would have to go from Orsay to some intermediate station in Paris, take some metro line (using the company that wasn't in strike) and reach a certain station in which a train to CDG were available.

For reasons that are irrelevant now, and to keep things short, I will say that I ended up first taking the RER in Orsay until Châtelet – Les Halles; then I took the metro and arrived to the Opera. There, I took the RoissyBus (see the picture below), modern wonder that is the center of this capsule. This is a service intended to connect people in central Paris to the CDG airport. Given the strike circumstances, the RoissyBus seemed the most reasonable option to arrive to CDG in time.



I took the Roissy Bus and it quickly got out of the center of Paris. I had never reached the airport with a car or autobus, so I didn't know what the 'car entrance' to CDG would look like. Soon we were in a huge highway, and all the planes landing and taking off suggested that we were close to the CDG. All of the sudden, the bus left what it seemed to be the 'mainstream' entrances to the airport. I was surprised indeed, and looked at the faces of people around me: nobody looked worried or nervous, apart from the usual tension people in a rush have in these cases.

Soon we were inside the cargo part of the airport. We entered into some closed set of hangars and storehouses, with very narrow roads. Even if everything outside was a little strange, I was quite relaxed as I was certainly confident on the fact that we were taking a special route, carefully designed so to avoid traffic for all those who need reach CDG as soon as possible from the center. I was just behind the driver, who also acted very normal and confident.

Some minutes after, the RoissyBus stopped. The public part of the narrow road had ended: a fence separated us from some private property. The driver suddenly started to look at his GPS like crazy, and to look around. After some minutes, some radio communications between the driver and (I assume) the central control of the RoissyBuses took place. I couldn't understand what they said, but they seemed upset. We the passengers started to look to ourselves, and quickly realized our absurd reality. Our skillful driver had taken us into a very strange place, and we needed to go back to the main road.

So, we were in the middle of nowhere and needed to go back. In principle, this seems easy, but we had two main problems. One, the long, articulated bus needed to go back in an extremely narrow road, and two, we had a nervous, stupid driver. To give you an idea, imagine what is to leave a parking spot with cars in front and behind you: you have to go back and forth patiently, and repeatedly turn back, until getting enough space to turn completely to one side and go out. Our driver did precisely that, but all his effort was in vain. He obviously had never done that in his life, and the "acordeon" between the two parts of the bus was a nightmare for him, and also for us, who had no option but to observe the pathetic scene. We spent around 20 minutes in doing this: soon people inside the bus started to get anxious and to tell unrequested dramatic stories of how bad it would be to miss their flights. Argh.

At some point, the driver started to talk to some security guards nearby the fence. They had seen all the attempts of our driver and laughed. We didn't. The driver then found out that to one side of the road, there were some huge stones instead of some regular fence. That was our key to scape. The security guards stopped laughing and moved some of the stones, thus leaving some extra space for the RoissyBus to get out. It had to be done carefully, because of the 'second part' of the bus and the notorious incompetence of our driver. He did it very, very slowly.

We had been there for around half an hour and people were starting to suggest things, although not very loudly. I interpreted this lack of reaction in critical situations as another sign of developed societies, as strikes are. I was very calmed since, even with the delay, I had plenty of time. In fact, trying to anticipate any problem related to the strike, I had taken the first train from Orsay. Doing so had proven very wise, indeed.

At the end we managed to get out of the narrow road and to turn completely. I saw some unexpected expressions of joy: people were laughing, and when the whole turn back was done, my fellow passengers started to clap unanimously. I think I saw some hugging between complete strangers but I am not sure. Amazing! We went back to the main road, the driver followed the arrows he should never have ignored and we got safely to CDG. The most unlikely of the developments had arrived to a happy ending.

Now a concluding digression. The surprising clapping in the RoissyBus made quite an impression on me: in fact, clapping in public transportation means automatically brings back to me one of the most disturbing Colombian habits. Indeed, when any plane coming from abroad lands in Colombian soil, Colombians in the plane start to clap. Yes, they clap, and sometimes for several minutes! I never understood why is that, and let me tell you, I feel embarrassed when that occurs. Some people say that this is to honor the pilot. Nonsense. Perhaps my fellow Colombians just try to thank God the flight went OK, or they want express their happiness; in any case, I find it pathetic. It seems that things used to be worse in the past: I was told that there was a Colombian airline who played a fragment of the national anthem as soon as the plane landed, just before the clapping ritual.

(It has to be said that landing in Bogotá is a magnificent experience. The city is HUGE and flights from Europe usually arrive in the afternoon, so you can see very well the whole city from a privileged perspective. It is simply marvelous. You can see the landing here, and the see the landing and hear the clapping here.)