My Suitcase Has Arrived!

      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!