Allons enfants de la Patrie!

Airborne has worked as promised, dutifully fighting off the cold.  I'm glad I brought some so I didn't have to ask for any at the pharmacy, I can picture how that conversation would have gone down.  "I'm looking for a fizzy orange tablet that dissolves in water and gives you vitamins to fight off a cold."  I would have gotten that "quoi?!" look that I get so often here.  I've still got "the sniffles" but luckily, have managed to avoid the tangle of calling in sick.  My long day is Monday, and I've gotten that safely behind me, so I should be able to knock out the rest of this week with no problems.

No upper respiratory problems, that is.  There was a grève today, and of course my school wasn't participating, but the buses were.  Wonderful.  I did make it, although not without a mini-adventure.  First of all, the bus was late.  Our route was supposed to run at 75% capacity, so maybe that had something to do with it.  Then, there was some kind of accident on the normal bus route, so our bus driver basically went rogue and took us on what can only be described as "the scenic route".  I definitely got to see some French countryside today, let's just put it that way.  About 2/3 of the way through this detour, some lady in the back of the bus had a hissy fit about it taking so long, so that provided some entertainment for the voyage.  My school was also right along the route of the manifestation, so the kind bus driver dropped me off as close as he could get and I walked the rest of the way.  I heard part of a French protest song and saw some flags waving, but it must have been towards the end of the protest because there wasn't much going on by that time.  I was really hoping somebody would sing La Marseillaise, but no such luck.  I had previously called the school saying I was going to be late, but actually I was on time...barely.  I think I got there with five minutes to spare.  The teachers looked really happy - I'm sure they weren't looking forward to whipping up an English lesson from scratch with a 20 minute warning.  I wouldn't have been happy about that either.  Everything was all finished by the time I was done teaching, and I got home without a hitch.  I'll end this post with a tentative "to be continued" re: the grève, as it may continue on for a few days.