Passed my absolute worst night here in France yesterday. I keep thinking I've hit the bottom, but it seems that I was merely plumbing the depths all this while.
First, the train service broke down in the morning - the train drivers were on strike, protesting the uncouth and violent behaviour of commuters on the Cergy-Paris route. This persisted until night, so those of us with only morning classes were stranded until the school bus could ferry us back to the dorm at 4.30pm.
This wasn't so bad. It was a waste of time, but I filled in the intervening four and a half hours chatting with Luq, and searching for a fab new jacket online. Saw a few possibilities, but neh.
Got back to the dorm at five, and continued chatting. Had narrowed my jacket down to one finalist, and was happily making my purchase online when I smelled smoke. Thought it was someone's dinner burning, or some idiot smoking under my window, so totally ignored it.
Next thing I knew (which was quite a bit later, since setting up my account was quite a time-consuming task), the sounds of a raucous alarm was ringing in my ears. Looked out of the window, thinking it was a police car, but it wasn't. Dismissed it as someone's overly loud movie. Tuned it (and the sound of running footsteps too, I think) out for quite a while, but when it got beyond irritating and annoying to migraine-inducing (plus I had concluded my purchase at last), I decided to investigate. Put some shoes on (minus socks), grabbed my phone, wallet & almost took my laptop as well, but thought it was overkill for an apparent fire drill.
Went downstairs, passing a fireman at the same time, and was greeted by billowing inky black smoke. Walked towards the people clustered at one end of the grounds, to discover most of them had been lured downstairs by the strident call of the alarm half an hour earlier, while I was still oblivious.
Apparently, two cars had exploded in the parking garage downstairs (cause currently unknown), and sparked an electrical fire. All power and heating were subsequently gone.
I wasn't the latest one, though. Some of my classmates were asleep, and came downstairs after persistent wake-up calls. Amazing how they managed to sleep through all that noise. Others had to be coaxed down by firemen later, while we were being evacuated. Even heard of this case where a guy had hidden himself in the pull-out truckle bed case under the mattress, and had to be 'rescued'. Serious!
But we were a real sight. Some of us were wearing jackets pulled hastily over jammies, complete with bedroom slippers, while others coming from school or elsewhere were fully dressed, with all sorts of mixtures in between. There were even some poor souls wearing shorts or socks in the cold!
Then, it became a waiting game. We were moved from one spot to another, outdoors to indoors, from 7-plus in the evening all the way until we were eventually relocated to the school premises close to 11. There were no seats, but thankfully the boutique staff distributed free bottled water after a while, so we could ease our parched throats. Kept getting hungrier and hungrier, though, but managed to solve that by teaming with a group of other students to order pizza. Have admit it was the first time I had to tear pizza into uneven slices barehanded, sitting on the floor and eating in the dark, but it was delicious! From a philosophic viewpoint, it would be more about life affirmation than food, but to my tummy, food was the all-important manna.
The amphitheatre was transformed into a temporary refugee camp once we arrived. Blankets were handed out about an hour or so later, and we tried to go to bed after listening to the firemen's updated announcements at 12-odd. Some tried to sleep in the faux-airlines seats, others spread out on the floor, all trying to settle in since school still had to go on the next day.
Others went into a post-fire celebratory swing, opting for dance and booze in the student pub till the wee hours. Nothing wrong with that, I guess, only that some of the sodden revellers woke us up later on with their incessant giggling and drunken antics. Argh! They made such a nuisance of themselves that the guard had to ask them to respect those who were trying to sleep. Not much help, though, until the students yelled at them. One line I liked was, "Shut up or get out" *cheers*
*Sigh* It's the next day now, but things still don't look good. Last night, they said some students MIGHT be allowed back in their rooms tonight, they HOPE, but the latest update is that we're all going to have to spend another night here. *Bigger sigh*
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