The internet connection here at the hotel in Bordeaux is slower than molasses in the dead of a Michigan winter! Hopefully once I get to Fumel I can get a connection that doesn't take seven minutes to upload one photo! O well, at least my suitcase has been found and has arrived here at the hotel. Honestly, there was a tiny part of me that wanted them to not be able to deliver it until I was already in Fumel. That way, I wouldn't have to try to transport it down the tiny sidewalk-lacking streets of Bordeaux to get to the train station.....Yes, I know it's my fault for packing 70lbs of luggage, but a girl just has to have her favorite things in order to survive!
Today was quite a nice day. I probably walked a least fifteen miles. Bordeaux doesn't have a metro, but it does have an easily navigable tramway. The trams themselves are very new, clean, and cheap (7 euro for a 5-travel card). Since my hotel is south of the city center, I decided to take the tram all the way to the northern end of town and walk my way back. So I wound my way through the streets of Bordeaux passing le Musée des Beaux Arts, La Cathédrale St André, La Palais Rohan (the town hall), L’Esplanade des Quinconces (a lovely open square flanked by birch trees and anchored by a huge fountain and the Garonne River), L’église St Pierre, and Le Miroir d’Eau (a large open fountain upon which (or in which) you can walk, reminiscent of Chicago’s Millenium Park or the fountains in front of the Detroit River by the Ren Cen).
Really my biggest adventure of the day was trying to find an adapter plug for my laptop charger. Since I had packed my power adapter in the suitcase, which I didn’t have until just now, I was running out of battery charge very quickly. After inquiring at several stores where I might find such a rare item as a power adapter, I found a hardware store! Unfortunately, the only USA to France adapter they had had a wall surrounding the area where one would plug in the American plug. If you’ve ever seen a Mac wall charger, you’ll understand why this is a problem. The giant “wall-wort” that is the the charger, simply won’t fit inside the walls of the plug adapter. SO. I decided to take matters into my own hands and remove the wall. The plastic was too thick to cut with scissors so, being at a hardware store, my mind went straight towards the idea of a saw. Long story short – I now have a working plug adapter for my laptop cord! Oh, and you know what else I found out? Noone bothers you when they see you walking down the street with a hacksaw! :)
By the way, I thoroughly enjoy how the French use any surface as a place to sit and relax. It wasn’t anything new to see people sitting on steps, but I saw a couple eating lunch while wedged into a window alcove. Also, there are these posts lining the streets to separate the sidewalks from the roadway and I saw several people sitting on a post with their legs up on another post! It seems that everything in France is public property, even the structures of the streets and the surfaces of buildings.
Tomorrow I’ll be taking the train from Bordeaux to Monsempron-Libos (the closest train station to the town of Fumel). I’m going to try to leave my hotel a bit early so I can deal with my luggage slowing me down to a crawl!
Voilà. My first day In France has been quite the adventure. My flight from Detroit to Paris was relatively uneventful. The meal they served for dinner was quite good. Accompanied by a mini bottle of red wine and a few sleeping pills, it lulled me into a gentle sleep. I woke up about an hour and a half before landing...just enough time to let my eyes adjust to the light again and enjoy a decent breakfast. Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport has never made the “best airport” list, and now I understand why. I probably walked at least two miles total from the gate at which my DTW to CDG plane docked to where my CDG to BOD was to take off. Also, the French don’t believe in air-conditioning (which I knew) but never was the fact made so apparent that a little airflow never hurt anyone as when I was dripping in sweat while dragging my carry-on suitcase and backpack while wearing a leather jacket! I finally made it through security after having a lovely Indian woman search my bags and ask me, upon finding a little incense burner featuring the god Ganesh buried in my case, if I was part Indian. I bashfully replied “No, I just like my room to smell like I am.”
The flight to Bordeaux was quite bumpy. I’m used to a little turbulence, but this seemed like the pilot was purposefully trying to make the flight attendants tumble down the aisle. I arrived in Bordeaux thinking to myself how well I was doing with the whole “getting there” part of my trip….and then it started to fall apart. Standing at the luggage conveyor belt until everyone except myself had picked up their bags and continued on their merry way, I started to feel a little worried. My GINORMOUS suitcase had some how gotten lost in transit! So after I filled out a bunch of paperwork in the AirFrance office and dealt with the fact that I don’t have a portable phone yet, so no, AirFrance cannot contact me directly…I resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t going to see my suitcase for a few days.
So me, myself, my backpack, my carryon suitcase, and the cute little toiletries bag that AirFrance gave me as a consolation prize for being so lucky as to have lost my luggage, boarded a shuttle bus to the Bordeaux Train Station. Once at the Train Station, I got a map of the city and directions on how to get to the hotel I had booked for my two night stint in Bordeaux. Now keep in mind that I am usually an exceptional navigatrice. Really, I am, but heaven help me, Bordeaux is insane! (well at least the area surrounding the train station is) It seems like the entire city is under construction, so pedestrian walkways are nearly non-existent. I went backwards and forwards for probably a good half hour before I pointed myself in the right direction and headed towards my hotel. Arriving at the Teneo Suites around 17h00 I wasn’t even surprised to find that the reception desk was closed (it opened back up at 18h00). The automated 24hr check-in machine didn’t have any record of my having a reservation, so it wouldn’t issue me a key for a room…so I sat in the lobby until the reception desk opened. They also had no record of my reservation (damn expedia.com to hell) but gave me a room key with no further questions. Unfortunately, the key they gave me was to a room which had not been cleaned since its previous tenets had vacated it. With a giant sigh signifying that I was starting to loose faith in the world…I tramped back down to reception and got a key to a different room….I also bought a wi-fi access card so I could go on Skype and let my parents know that I was alive and so that I could post this blog entry.
I hadn’t eaten since the Flight from Paris so I thought I should go for a walk and try to find a restaurant. However, unless I wanted to spend upwards of 14 euro for some dinner, I was destined to starve. I finally saw one place called “El Bodegon: Rock Café” which looked to be moderately priced for “Formule.” (a fixed price several course French meal plan). I sat out on the terrace and looked at the lovely Place de la Victoire. Obelisk, arch, cobblestones…what more could you ask for? Well, food would’ve been nice. Unfortuantely after I ordered some kind of Blonde Ale the bar had on special, I discovered that they didn’t serve food after 15h00. So, my first meal in France was simply a liquid meal.
I decided that I could just pick up a baguette or croissant on the walk back to the hotel. So I started back down La Cours de la Marne towards my hotel when I accidentally smiled at the guy walking next to me…a real “mec” if you know what I mean. Now, in America we smile at anyone and everyone. It’s just polite. But in France, a girl smiling at a boy means something much more suggestive. So he starts talking to me as we’re walking. He was trying to butter me up while I kept reminding him that he knows nothing about me and that I’m not in the mood to party with champagne and dancing tonight. First off, I am actually pretty tired but also because I have enough common sense to not let a random guy off the street sweet talk his way into my hotel room…lol. Here we go…Natalie has hit the pavement with a running start.
Hopefully tomorrow will prove to be less eventful. I will be exploring the city center, probably walk along the river a bit, and hopefully get my suitcase back! If nothing else, I've gotten to speak quite a lot of french on my first day! I am reasonable satisfied with how well I've been able to communicate even on an informal level with the people around me....I was most definitely worried that I would come to France and not understand a single word that anyone said to me. It's all gonna be ok though. :)
Here I go...By this time tomorrow I will most likely have just checked into my hotel in Bordeaux. I'll be staying there for two nights before continuing on to the town of Fumel. It'll be about a 2 1/2 hour train ride from Bordeaux to Fumel. Away from the hustle and bustle of the metropolitan city, I hope to experience the real French way of life in a quintessential village.
My first task will be to survive the plane ride....wish me luck!
