The Blockade Continues

The student blockade of all classes here at the University of Angers will continue until February 24th, at which time the AG (student strikers) will hold a réunion to vote on whether or not to allow classes to continue. This past Thursday I attended the AG réunion, where I had prepared and given a speech all in French, expressing my point of view and sentiments with regards to being turned away from my classes. However, the striking students still voted for the blockade. In the meantime, the AG hopes that their striking strategies and blockade of classes will bring about the reform that they are requesting from President Sarcozy and his administration. Meanwhile, as I wait to see if my classes will continue, I am glad that my three CUFCO courses are continuing, despite the strike. In these three CUFCO classes on French language, culture, and conversation, we have been discussing and trying to understand the strike, and how democracy works here in France. It seems rather complicated to me at this point. I believe there are five different parties or groups in the political arena, each with their own point of view.

Other Cultural Aspects: As I may have mentioned before, public transportation is very plentiful here and helps cut down on the use of petroleum. In fact, it seems that every time I look out the window or down the street I see one or two buses approaching. Most of the local transport buses in Angers are double the length of the community buses in Bangor, Maine. One can get anywhere in France, it seems, by utilizing the bus and train network. In addition, the French seem to drive smaller vehicles than in the U.S., which also helps to conserve petroleum. Consequently, I see the French drive cars by Renault, Peugeot, VW, and scaled down cars by Toyota, Chevrolet, and Ford. I even saw a Chevy van that was scaled down in size for meeting the demands for smaller vehicles here in France. It's amazing that Ford, Chevrolet, and Toyota makes smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles for other countries such as France, but not for the U.S. Some of the cars here are so compact that they accomodate only two people, with little cargo space. These cars appear very efficient, probably taking up less space and using less petroleum. One day I saw a 4-cyl Toyota pick-up truck go by and had to look twice. I don't often see pick up trucks here as personal vehicles; plus the smallest Toyota pick-up truck actually looks large here.

Building construction is another thing that I have noticed here, at least in Angers. It seems that, for the most part, buildings are constructed from concrete (cement), where very little, if any, lumber is used. The new buildings being constructed around my residence hall are all from concrete. Even the walls in my residence room feel like wallpaper-covered concrete.

Since this is the first weekend of my February week-long vacation here, today I am venturing into the heart of Angers (the city center) by one of the huge double-long buses to explore what this city of 260,000 residents has to offer. It is a sunny-blue-sky day for a change, even though it is still chilly. I noticed frost on car windshields this morning. I plan to go after lunch, in order to give it more time to warm up.

All for now until next time. Please continue to follow my blog, since I will keep updating it as often as possible. If you would like to contact me directly at any point, my e-mail address at Angers is:
virginia.sand@etud.univ-angers.fr