The Place: Spent a weekend in Paris cycling around the city, joining french protests, and seeing the sights.
Highlights: Bicycles were a really cool way to get around. Paris have a system which allows you to collect a bike from any of the allocated bays in the city. You then have the freedom to park your bike at any bay, go and do something, then pick up another bike from another bay.
Joined a May day protest not really sure of what we were protesting, but had fun wandering among the different festivities of the day. We ended up climbing up onto the Column of the Bastille in the centre of the square where we had a good view of activities going on below. The march went by the name of 'Rêve générale' (General Dream) as a pun on 'Grêve générale' (General Strike), and found out afterwards it was organised by the eight biggest unions against Nicolas Sarkozy's reforms against the public sector - jobs, health care, universities, etc. Though the issues may have been serious, the march was a lot of fun including jazz bands performing on the back of moving vehicles, walking samba bands, street meats and mojitos!
No comments:
Post a Comment