exceptional

So the morning after it snowed between 15cms in Paris, I, along with most people who had to go outside that day, dug in the back of our closets for something to afront the "exceptional" (the ministor of interior's words, not mine) weather conditions.

Luckily I had somehow with me old hiking boots from when I lived in Sapporo, Japan where the first snowfall can be as early as October and not exceptional for the average annual snow accumulation to be 600cms. Indeed, 15cms of snow in Sapporo in February would also be considered exceptional.

As exceptional weather conditions calls from exceptional weather attire, I strapped on my boots, put on my giant black downfeather coat that my husband says makes me look like a homeless person, and finished off by wrapping a giant scarf made of Icelandic wool around my neck.  I was ready. 

It was eerily quite outside except for the "crunch crunch" sound of people who are not used to walking in snow, walking in snow.  Nobody made eye contact since their head were down and although this is not exceptional what was that they were concentrated on their feet and not their smartphones.

That evening I wrapped up my kids as warm as I could tucked them into the double stroller and slowly made it to the bus stop in the hopes that there would be a bus.  There was exceptionally, no bus, so I would have to push them back to the apartment through unpaved sidewalks. 

It exceptionally took me took me 40 minutes instead of the usual 20 minutes to get back.  I could have done it in 30 minutes had my daughter not exceptionally drop Kiki her adorable bottle sucking monkey. Devestated she tried to leave the stroller screaming "Kiki!  We have to go back for Kiki! She'll be cold, Mom, we have to go back! Kiki!!!!!".

Undeterred I plowed the rest of the way home by reassuring my daughter that Kiki was fine and that we'll find her, only later. 

So I lied (sorry Kiki), but it was under exceptional circumstances. 

le bus

So the bus I take to pick up my kids at the day care center is a bus that is paid for by companies to haul their workers from public transport to the office.  The bus starts from the metro at one end and goes to the RER at the other end, between the two is a distance of 2 kilometers with passages through mainly industrial zones.

I try to be on best behavior with the busdrivers since they literally go around in a small circles which makes them kind of grumpy.  Or so I thought when sometimes they would drive right by without picking up passengers.  And then I realized that maybe they don't know they have passengers. 

Why?  Firstly since the bus runs mostly in the mornings and evenings other buses use the bus stop for parking so usually view of the bus stop is blocked by another giant bus.

Secondly the bustop is almost always full of people only these people are not waiting for the bus. They are just a group of older maghreban gentlemen sitting around taking advantage of the free seats and chatting.  Seriously I've taken the bus in the morning and in the evenings it's always the same group. 

The other day I got to the bus stop and to my surprise the older gentlemen were not there.  This was because an homeless guy had moved in. 

So from the busdriver's perspective he is on a route that goes in small circles and sometimes he can't see the bustop because it's being blocked by a giant bus or if he can see the bustop it's either filled with people who don't want to take the bus or if it's empty it's because the people who want to take the bus are hiding counter wind to avoid the bad smell coming from the homeless guy and appear at the last minute frantically waving their arms as if for rescue.

Not the best bus route I admit but maybe not so dull.