August in France is something special – mostly because everyone who hasn’t already gone on vacation promptly leaves the weekend closest to August 1st. This year I learned that the Franch have a name for the day when everyone leaves on vacation: it is called journée noire. This is after a traffic categorization scheme which has green, orange, red, and black colors from normal to extremely dense traffic:
http://www.bison-fute.equipement.gouv.fr/fr/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=41
So the fact is – it is now the beginning of August and everyone is on vacation. This is visible in a number of interesting ways:
- All university cafeterias are closed – there is no food to get around here anywhere (and we are on a plateau with a number of different universities and research institutions – each with their own closed cafeterias)
- The university campus gates are locked – you now have to enter and exit through special gates (like at night on non august days)
- Our library has shut down
- We moved into a new building with a number of hiccups which will not be fixed until September (e.g. bathroom doors which don’t lock, toilets which don’t flush, lights which don’t turn on, …)
- Administrative things pile up until September
- The trains are on a summer schedule. which is nice as it makes our garden quieter but at the same time it means much longer travel times to Paris
These are just some of the many things in which life is getting closer to a standstill – at the same time that the Parisians flee the area, the tourists are coming in – more about that some other time…
