“The Ouigo Train #7623 from Paris to Nantes that should have left at 2:24 p.m. will eventually leave… as soon as possible.”
I’m tired after our three-day trip in Paris, but the good kind of tired. We enjoyed new experiences and created plenty of happy memories, the kind that makes life meaningful—I hope Mark feels the same way. Still, we got up early, checked out, went for a walk then picked up the bags I had left at the hotel to go to the train station before mayhem. It’s early afternoon but I could take a nap right here, right now.
“Our train back to Nantes is at 2:24 p.m. at Montparnasse,” I emailed Feng last night. “And guess what, the right-wing anti-vaccine protest starts at 2:30 p.m. at Montparnasse. FML.”
We left early to avoid subway station closures and a large crowd of racist, unvaccinated protesters. We ended up waiting for over an hour in Montparnasse Hall 2 because our train was late anyway but hey, most travellers should be vaccinated at least.
And now Mark and I are both sitting in the train listening to music.
Mark is humming “Le vent nous portera.”
“Have you ever seen Noir Désir live in concert, mommy?”
“Didn’t get the chance. Then Cantat killed his wife and went to jail so…”
“He WHAT??”
“Never mind, don’t worry about.”
Sometimes I do forget I’m talking to an eight-year-old kid.
I rarely listen to music these days. The last time I did was probably in Floripa where Feng had made a playlist of our favourite songs.
How cute. The SNCF just texted me that the train I’m sitting in will be late. Oh yeah, thanks for letting me know we’re still stuck in Montparnasse, totally didn’t notice.
Ouigo trains—basically the low-cost train service—don’t come with free Wi-Fi. Since “oui go” nowhere for now and I can’t exactly work without an Internet connexion, I reach into my backpack and pull out my earbuds.
I love music. Why don’t I listen to music more often?
I browse through the Music folder and click play.
A tear is rolling down my cheek.
Ah, this is why.
This is the kind of upbeat music that makes people want to dance and sing along, why on earth am I crying?
Probably because it describes another world, the pre-pandemic world.
Suddenly I want to get into a mosh pit and jump around with thousands of complete strangers WITHOUT reaching for a bottle of hand sanitizer throughout the entire night.
I want to hang out a hostel lounge, slump onto a seat dozens of people use every day and that hasn’t been cleaned for years, listen to the random dude who is travelling with a guitar—there was always a random dude travelling with a guitar—and share my most private thoughts and theories with people I’ll part ways with in the morning and will never see again.
No cinco da madrugada a gente vai procurer
No cinco da madrugada o bixo vá pegar
Porque morre a noite, não sei não sei não sei
Por donde saldra el sol, no sé no sé no sé
Central America comes to mind right now, I’m picturing Feng and I in a chicken bus, time is irrelevant, we’ll get there eventually, we have no idea where we’re going to spend the night anyway, or what our destination looks like and where we will be a day, a week, a month from now.
I want to roam around the world freely. I don’t want to read the news and have global issues explained to me by people in newsrooms thousands of kilometres away from the issue they are writing about. I want to chat with random people and learn how they live their life.
I have to stop crying, this is embarrassing. I wish I could get up and dance, shout or scream, start a huge party right there.
Can I?
Probably not. Tweeting about the train being late or joining the “I hate the SNCF” Facebook group is the accepted way to express feelings these days.
O minho destino é viajar
Yo no soy de ningun lugar
“Mark… What are listening to?”
“Crowded House.”
“Which one?”
“Distant sun.”
“Depressing enough. Perfect. Let’s share my earbuds.”
Noting something here: you feel that anti-vaxxers are essentially right-wingers in France too? I didn’t follow enough besides the headlines to have an opinion.
It’s actually more complicated than that now. Post to come about it… when the protest first started it was mostly the crazy people and right wing. I followed the last protest in Nantes (it started just downstairs the building, I followed it as a photographer, not a protester). It shifted from anti-vaccine to “hey, maybe we should question how far governments are going”. I don’t necessarily agree, I’m 100% pro science and vaccination but some aspects of the way the crisis is managed are questionable or at least should be debated. Now, the health pass isn’t a big deal to me, of all the measures implemented over the past two years, this one actually makes sense to me.
There were two protests in Nantes last week, right wing (didn’t see it) and… really, a big mix of people and opinions.
There was someone from a civil rights movement on Radio-Canada earlier, and she made good points about homeless people and immigrants without papers especially regarding how it would be implemented in Québec. But one of her argument was pretty weak, and it undermined her point. It was about high rate of vaccination, which aren’t medically high.
It’s mandatory to get numerous vaccines for children (my youngest nephews had already over 10 before being 2). Why would it be a problem to have the Covid-19 vaccine mandatory too?
It’s a vaccine based (for the mRNA ones) based on a 30 year old technology. If there was a problem with it, we’ld already know. And the testing plus the use of them since January would have revealed any other side effect.
If all people who could get vaccinated were, we wouldn’t need a passe sanitaire.
The numbers don’t look good, but every government seems to keep going loosening restrictions. It’s completely absurd there isn’t any mask mandates in Alberta anymore. I thought, with the vaccines, that we wouldn’t need any lockdown, but I’m not so sure anymore.
I was horrified earlier when I don’t remember which dumbass said that we were going to have a 4th wave but didn’t seem to care that it still puts a drain on the healthcare system.
I just don’t have the scientific background to question vaccines, period. It just makes sense to get vaccinated against COVID just like it makes sense to get vaccinated against a number of diseases. It’s okay (and probably healthy, no pun intended) to question government measures but I’m certainly not going to believe a random Facebook dude when thousands of health professionals around the world are explaining why X or Y is a good idea.
However, I disagree with you on lifting or loosening restrictions. If not now, when? The UK i apparently doing okay after all. I find it counter productive to keep a number of restrictions when vaccination rates are high enough. I don’t have an opinon on every single measure but for instance I refuse to wear a mask outside in the street now that I’m vaccinated and hanging out with vaccinated relatives. Public places indoors, yes. Outside? Fuck it.
Outside, unless in dense crowds, it has been really useful.
I’m essentially refering to indoor masks mandates.
Look Florida for for example the governdiot, DeSantis, has FORBIDDEN masks mandates, threatening to defund schools which impose them.
Yeah, indoors still makes sense to me. I have yet to see a place where this mandate was lifted (except bars and restaurants). It would make sense with the enforcment of vaccine passports, though.
Zut, I forgot a word.
Outside, it has NEVER been useful.