War?

If I was to say one thing about travelling, it would be that it is full of unexpected surprises (not the eight legged kind) that never cease to remind you that you are miles from home, in a foreign country, surrounded by unknown culture and ways of life. These surprises are common (for me, at least, which probably says something about NZ's relative isolation from the world. Thank God we recently got internet). But my most recent surprise was definitely my most unexpected.

It was a free day for me, I had one class at night which was cancelled (I was warned that the french love to strike, but I assumed it would happen once we had actually started) and so had the whole day free. So I decided to try and get some of the mountainous readings I had already been given out of the way (seriously 100 pages a week per class, pretty sure the students should be the ones striking).

Sitting at my IKEA desk in my IKEA room trying to focus and not get distracted by whatever I could find that delayed me from the task at hand, it happened. Out of nowhere came a loud siren that permeated my room, demanding unrgent attention. Now, I'm not talking about one of those pathetic police car sirens they have in NZ, nor the drowning/fire sirens they have in Sumner, I'm talking the world is ending, run for your life kind of siren. Well, that's how I took it anyway. I ran to my window (obviously to check if I could see the tsunami/tornado/mad man) but nothing looked different and I couldn't see anyone. I ran round in circles in my room a couple of times (because that's clearly what you do to stop sirens) but it continued to ring out loud and clear. Panicked scenarios ran through my head and I was about one bang away from getting under my bed (which would actually, now I come to think of it rationally, be bloody hard as my bed is a flexi ruler distance from the ground). As soon as I came to the logical plan of getting under my bed, the siren stopped.

For some reason the stopping of the siren panicked me more and I did what anyone would do under intense amounts of pressure and fear, I googled it. "Sirens in Paris" was actually an extemely helpful Google search. Not only could I dismiss the idea of getting under my bed (not that I'm sure I would have fitted anyway. All these Boulangerie visits plus beds designed for small Japanese women would have made for an interesting experiment) but I could rest assured on the fact that I wasn't going to die from this mysterious fire/earthquake/hailstorm. My search resulted in the information that on the first Wednesday of every month at exactly midday and 12.10pm, the sirens in Paris are tested in case of future nuclear wars (which only made me feel marginally better). For Parisians these sirens almost go unnoticed and the day is carried on with as usual. Great.

Me thinks this wee tidbit of information should be explained to certain foreigners who are not used to the testing of loud, intrusive sirens in a foreign country.