How to Get Lost in Bordeaux

It's really very easy. All you have to do is set off in the opposite direction to which you normally go (ie into the suburbs), walk for about 40 minutes, and THEN check your map to see where you are. This is basically what I spent my morning doing.



However, I did go past (okay, and into) a couple of nice shops, some cute little neighbourhood shopping centres, AND I purchased a phone card for calling NZ from one of the numerous 'ring your family for less!' shops. I also saw quite a few things which reminded me of French Club times, back in the day, which I hope to email photos of soon.

Also got to see some political material (Lorenz, lol):



Lunch was back at the hostel... I think! Am struggling to remember this day, to be honest.

Went to see the Art Museum behind the town hall, as the permanent exhibitions were free. Yay! Spent some time contemplating just how old some of the paintings were; it's amazing the history that you can find at some of those places, if you stop to consider it. I mean, paintings from the 1800s... And I still don't understand how painters do it! Getting the shadows on wrinkles of material just right, and stuff like forests. If I tried, it'd just look like blobs of paint and random dashes of colour, but they somehow make it work. Envy.

Spent the arvo combing the shops. Not a huge selection in Saint Gaudens, so was quite enjoying myself. Found a huge mall with an absolutely massive 'Auchan' shop (Vivons mieux, vivons moins cher: Live better, live more cheaply - I think this is their slogan). It had rows of about 15 checkouts on each of its approx 3 levels. Amazing. Also a pretty tasty looking biscuit shop, but I resisted... Best find was on the main shopping street, and the closest thing to NZ's Kathmandu shop that I've found (called Decat). 15E sneakers, and 9E plain, long-sleeved cotton t-shirts. Happy times.

Was too lazy to organise my own dinner at the hostel, so decided to revisit my kebab man. He seemed quite pleased to see me, and we had another long chat. This somehow got onto the topic of marriage, divorce, and how apparently, in Turkish culture, it's ok for a married man to 'have some fun,' but not for a woman. However, it is not ok to divorce because of this. Interesting...



Went for a walk across the Pont de Pierre a) because it had stopped raining and, b), because I could. Couldn't stop myself from taking many, many pictures. Here's one of the better ones.

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.