Paris--day 10: Stuck in the Metro with you

When France underwent the Daylight Savings Time change on Sunday, someone forgot to tell the Metro ticket people. Because the time stamps on the tickets are an hour off, if you are in a Metro station with no independent exit door, you cannot get out because the ticket will not let you through the turnstile. Crawling under it works fine, however.

For the last few days, there have been riots in a suburb in Paris, ever since two teenage boys were electrocuted when they climbed into an electrical station, presumably to escape the police. Clichy-sous-Bois district has seen petrol bombs hurled and cars set on fire since Thursday, and there have been several arrests. According to French officials, the police were investigating a robbery when the boys ran to the electrical station, but they were not specifically chasing the victims.

The weather in Paris is once again beautifully chilly and windy, and we spent most of today at the Musee d'Orsay, where we saw the Pre-Impressionists, the Impressionists, the Post-Impressionists, and a special exhibit of Russian painting, graphics, photography, and objets d'art.