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.

It's Hip To Be Square

I've decided that one thing which is really lacking in NZ is town squares. They're awesome... France has got it going on. It's the perfect place to have a market, sit and have a meal or coffee, put a sweet monument, meet up with your friends... or protest (well, we are talking about France, here). And they're particularly cool when they're -um, how to describe?- stone cobbled. If that makes sense.
I guess we have parks and pedestrain streets and stuff, but I can't think off too many places in NZ with an actual focal point square. Could be wrong? The Octagon comes to mind... but, apart from that, our 'town squares' aren't really that lively.
I have many pictures of the squares here in Bordeaux, but sadly can't upload atm. Will do my best to rectify this soon...

Hello, all

Just so you can see that I haven't changed much in a month in France.

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.

Pau

Next stop: Pau. Destination: Château de Pau. This did prove to be slightly more difficult, as the way from the highway wasn't well signposted, and we ended up in some random area with heaps of one way streets. GPS came to the rescue, giving me an idea for a possible activity to do with the students!

Pau was definitely prettier than Lourdes. Quite liked the atmosphere of the place, actually. Saw a couple of posters in Occitan, the local language. Wandered for a bit, then decided that lunch was a good idea. But we were almost foiled. Am so unused to this idea of food pretty much only being served at meal times. Ie, if it's 2pm, you're going to struggle to find somewhere that's not fast food. Anywho, found a nice dude and got filled roll-ish thing and a fajita. And Orangina, cos that's always good! And, must say, it was all very tasty. So I was happy, but Nikolas was a bit peeved. Lol.
Oh, and joke of the day was that pizza seems to be a traditional French food. Everywhere we looked, there was a pizza place. Craziness!



Château de Pau tour was next on the agenda. It was in this castle that Henri IV, King of France, was born. Took heaps of pix here, so will be a bit hard to decide which to put up! Very grand inside, as you would expect. However, when Henri became King of France and headed off to Versailles, he took all his furniture with him (as you do). So, what's there now is more C19, from when Napoléon III lived there.

Tour all in French, but managed to get most of the important stuff. Nikolas was also good with repeating the most interesting info for me. Eg Henri IV had something like 56 mistresses. Must have been a busy man...

Ok, I think I've made the tough decision about which photos are best to show.



Unfortunately, I can't remember what this room was used for. I think it may have been for receiving guests. Anyway, you get an idea of the grandeur of the place. Check out the tapestries; at the time, they didn't hesitate to cut them down to size if it didn't fit their wall! Also learned that the people who worked on tapestries were a bit like the mosaicists. They specialised in faces, clothes, etc. That way, it didn't take a lifetime!



This is the room that Henri IV was born in, 13 December, 1553. The tortoise shell was his cradle; Nikolas said it was a tradition which is supposed to ensure a long life. As he pointed out, it didn't help Henri much, as he was assasinated in 1610.

We also got to see the dining/food storage room (with approx 6m thick walls), a kind of lounge (with some pretty impressive vases and a finely decorated sewing table), King's room (complete with a massive case for jewellery when travelling), Queen's apartment, a display of what I believe were chamber pots, and rooms full of very impressive historical pieces of art.



This was in one of the tapestries. Pukeko? (You're allowed to take pix of the tapestries, but no flashes. To preserve the colour.)

After a look at the (very geometrical) gardens, it was time to head back to Saint Gaudens. Had some fairly sweet views of the Pyrénées along the way, too. Great success!

Lourdes

First stop was Lourdes, which was about an hour away by car, I think. All the highways seem to be toll ones, too. Stink...

Not being of faith, I didn't really know a lot about the place, but I had swotted up by reading some of the touristy stuff that us assistants got given! For those that, like me, don't know a lot about it: it's "one of the world's great spiritual centres" because it was there, in a cave on the bank of the gave, that Bernadette Soubirous saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary in 1858. I think Nikolas said that she ended up seeing the apparation on about 3 separate occasions. Anyway, to give an indication of how big an attraction it is: my tourist info says the town has about 15,000 inhabitants, but received about 6 million visitors each year! Luckily, it's not the tourist season atm.

Nikolas quite rightly pointed out that the place is basically full of hotels (this little place apparently has more than Paris!!) and shops, like the ones below.



We wandered down to have a look at where the cave was, but didn't take any pix in that area... Somehow seemed kinda disrespectful. However, there were queues of people in wheelchairs, waiting to go into the caves, and people kneeling in prayer in front of the caves. I can't say I understand that kind of faith, but I hope they get their miracles!

Also looked at where people leave candles. There are heaps of little trailer-like things in which you can put row upon row of candles - and vending machine thingees that you can buy them from. The vending machines are only for the wee candles, though. On the trailer-like candle holders, it had 'This candle continues my prayer.' So, if you want it to continue for a really long time, you spend 100+ euro on a massive candle. Amazing.

Oh, and you can also bring your 5L containers to fill with Holy Water.

Finally, checked out what I *think* was the Notre Dame de Lourdes. The big church near the entrance, that looks like this, anyway.



Stained-glass windows were amazing, and throwing coloured light on the opposite wall of the church. Sweet vaulted (I think that's the word?) ceiling. Also, messages of thanks for miracles received carved on the stone blocks of the back wall. Could have (and did, I guess) stayed there for quite a while, just looking at it.

Another impressive part of the Notre Dame (I'm just going to call it that until I find out that I'm wrong) was this whopping great crown. (Château de Lourdes in the background).



Nikolas reckoned that Lourdes was ugly, but did see a couple of pretty, more natural areas like below.

Roadie: Lourdes and Pau

Thanks to Nikolas, a 'surveillant' who works at the collège where I live, I spent a sweet day seeing the sights of the above towns. And, despite it being cold enough for me to want hat, scarf and gloves when he picked me up, it turned into quite a summery day.

Have split up the posts, as it was starting to get unmanageable!