… milagro

—Suceso extraordinario y maravilloso. Sinónimo de: Fenómeno, maravilla, portento, prodigo.

Viernes 2 de julio, 2016
París, 75020
por: armando segovia

I can put an approximate date on it.

I still remember when i first heard that it was dying and i can tell you that it happened during the transmission of a 2006 World Cup match. It was the month of June. An overly stimulated Mexican media [morning show] correspondent asserted his Televisa viewers [via live satellite] that the unrestricted speed limits on the Autobahn where a myth, a mere legend, of course, 10 years have passed and i can assure you [right now] that in my recollections i am paraphrasing the correspondent’s Bundesautobahnen statements —strictly— from memory.

Anyway, long draft-story short, Mauricio Clark was [mostly, about 80%] full of shit. I write this because on June of 2006, i happened to be in the Heidelberg area and i do seem to recall that, while most of the routes [that i used to drive when i was stationed in Mannheim*] had been restricted to a specific measure in kilometers per hour, some stretches of the German federal highways, however, remained untouched by the regulation; except of course, for some sporadic pesky recommendations that made suggestions to moderate one’s own vehicle speed to 130 kph.

*  It was the ’90s  or the Bill Clinton Years. 

¿A qué voy?

Tomorrow [the first Sunday of the month] local Parisians, Franciliens, tourists and football fans [including some from WALES] will have an opportunity to witness the beginning of the end of [yet] another European myth: the closed on Sundays signs on big ticket retail stores… here in France, i’ve noticed that the system—or the culture calls ’em: Les Grand Magasins.

Of course, this myth does not apply to many small neighborhood supermarkets that range from small versions of the national chains to the Arab, Asian, or immigrant [mom & pop] shops; or even [dare i type] your home and garden shopping stores, these outlets [my Brexit friends] have been open for business —on Sundays— for quite some time.

Previously on this same subject, the one that covers a French law [enabler] called Macron, i also had the opportunity to witness the deregulation of the French bus market, an industry that is now free to travel up and down the motorways of the Via Franca [competing] side-by-side with the mighty and legendary state-owened railways of the SNCF [Sociedad Nacional de Rieles Franceses… por sus siglas en Francés… algo así como lo que un día en México fue, —el mito de los FFCC NdeM].

[Parisien street signs follow]. Time now.

TimeStamp  1000h  10h45m  [Rev.1] CET.

The Trailways, as a source:

Sociedad Nacional de Rieles Franceses: via, Meltz, R., Global Positioning System, in le-tigre.net… [website is under maintenance… Ce site est en maintenance… Diese website ist unter verwaltung.

TimeStamp: 14h [July, 3] CET