Today is France’s independence day, commemorating the ‘start’ of the French Revolution in 1789, the storming of the Bastille prison in Paris. Yes, it’s now just a memory along the Paris Marathon course, a traffic circle, and a water station on the route. They don’t give you little cups, but tiny bottles of water instead. That’s nice, since you can carry water with you, but everybody throws the bottles on the street so you end up dodging rolling, half-full containers while you run. And nearly kill yourself, which ties in nicely to the Bastille business, because the mob managed to kill prison officials who ‘got in the way’. So to celebrate, kill everybody in your way today, head out for a nice croissant or nutella crepe, then go on strike even if you’re not working.
3 comments:
I love Bastille Day! One of my students once told me I had the date of the French Revolution wrong and I said "Impossible! There is one every year. There's probably one going on right now!" Or at least a strike.
If I'd remembered I would have gone on strike from running today.
Well, since the French revolution went on for a long time and everything can I have permission to push people all week? Please? Not like Europeans ever wait for Bastille day to push anyway. Maybe I'll take to throwing tiny bottles of water at people as a warning shot. Vive la France!
Although it sounds fairly un-American of me, the French Revolution is a lot more interesting than the earlier one in the colonies. Maybe it was all the bloodless elementary school instruction about conventions in Philadelphia among rich white guys, writing up documents and memos that made me yawn at ours. The French version was anything but bloodless, with lots of drama queens instead.
Yes, please, wetsuit girl, push people all week long. Every European race I've ever been in involved major pushing above and beyond reason. And they call US aggressive.
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