Working Hard: Day 1 in Bordeaux

Gotta love the life of an assistant. Not only are we pretty much paid for talking to students in our native language (admittedly, a lot harder than it sounds with some unresponsive classes, but hey), we don't really have any pressure on us in terms of students' performance, and we only work 12 hours per week.
Add to this France's tendency to have lots of holidays... Of course, I had to try to be as French as possible and faire le pont ('make a bridge') between the holiday and my weekend. I have no classes on Wednesday or Friday, and the Thursday was a holiday.
Result: I decide to make a blimmin' big bridge, and go to Bordeaux for about 4 days.


One lady on the train started chatting with me, and I said I'd decided to 'faire le pont,' but that it was a big bride. She suggested that it was more of a viaduct!

This trip was fairly spur-of-the-moment (by my terms anyway) as I just looked at where I could go by train about 4 days before I wanted to go. Booked the train tickets so I couldn't dither, run out of time, and end up staying here and complaining. Internet searched the youth hostel, and emailed them to book. Holiday sorted, all in about an hour!

Wednesday arrived, and I hopped on the train to Toulouse (about an hour) and then swapped trains to get to Bordeaux (a bit over 2 hours). Fairly uneventful, but was a bit sad to watch the good weather disappearing as we approached Bordeaux.



When I arrived, set off to the Youth Hostel, which was only about 800m from the train station. Got in, made bed, left baggage... and went on the net. OMG, free net access with decent speed! And AT the place I was living. Such luxury! But, I know, disgusting to go on the net before going out to see the new place I was in.

Spent the arvo wandering the streets, and loving it! So many beautiful old buildings, churches, classic squares with eateries surrounding... felt a wee bit like I was in 'Allo, 'Allo (in a good way).


Found the very lengthy shopping-central street that one of the surveillantes had told me about.
Also loved the way that the Garonne river runs right through Bordeaux. Apparently, I like being in cities near water. :) Not to mention the FABULOUS views from the Pont de Pierre (stone bridge: Napoleon got it built to make moving his soldiers around easier). I took the photo below on day 2, when the weather was decidedly average.



Had passed SO many kebab places when wandering through town and, while slightly lost at about 7pm, was looking at the menu at one in particular when the owner was like "please, come in." Well, I thought, he's nice, so why not? As I was the only person in the place, we ended up having a big chat, about different cultures, NZ, Turkey... Good times.

Second Week of Holidays, With Random Reflections

Random reflections really describes a lot of this blog rather well.

Anyways, have had complaints (ok, complaint) about the length of time between posts. Hopefully the quantity being uploaded now makes up for that. ;p Just spread out actually reading them... Ha.

Had only a couple of days to fill in before Sabrina arrived to visit. Since it had been about 3 years since we last saw each other (and last time was in NZ), it was pretty crazy to meet up on the other side of the world! And really good to see her again.

Of course, it rained on the day she arrived, and the next day. Well done, Saint Gaudens. Hardly ever rains, except for when I have visitors. That makes twice!

There were many amusing times during the week, so guess I'll just list a few:

• cooking for 2 in my pathetic 'kitchen'
• randomly walking past the movies on All Saints' Day evening and finding that there were enough people there to have a queue out the door
• Sabrina continually getting big frights about not much (eg cyclist ringing bell behind us, lady coming out of a shop unexpectedly)
• making our own nightclub in my room, since SG doesn't have anything except bars
• making friends with the drivers of the 'navettes' (shuttles which go around town, and to nearby towns)
• attempting the exercises for the local fitness trail (and discovering a few new muscles the next day)
• managing (twice) to unknowingly pick the day that there was a discount at the movies to go and see one
• hiring an Australian tap-dancing movie because the video shop man recommended it when we asked about dance movies
• Sabrina explaining to me that if I use the word 'copine' for friend, and say my copine, it means my girlfriend. Luckily, I normally use 'amie' and, apparently, this doesn't work the same way. Otherwise, I could quite unwittingly have been telling people about my girlfriend.
• Sabrina randomly making conversation with the local Australian.

Also several good food moments:

• Calissons d'Aix: praline-y iced sweet things that Sab brought
• Lemon Tart: Just from La Mie Câline, but super tasty! Thank goodness for the actual lemon on the top though, or it'd have been too rich (even for me)
• Peanut butter: Sab found it in the 'world' aisle at one of the supermarkets
• Cherry pâtisserie thing: have really got to start remembering the names of things that I eat
• Super fromage crêpe: about 5 types of cheese in a single crêpe = guaranteed happiness
• Nutella crêpe: simple, yet tasty

Am now resolved to slowly work my way through many unfamiliar types of food. Although, I'm not too sure about stuff like rabbit. I saw a menu board today advertising a rabbit dish and it just doesn't appeal. We'll see if I get brave.