pays
marina, my friend from bordeaux, and me
the riverfront
(sorry about the big pictures, i can't figure out how to resize pics here)
today was a great day. we walked around bordeaux, and i began to get a real feel for the city and have discovered that it is quite different from paris in several important ways. i like bordeaux alot, it has its own charm and beauty. but i love paris, i really do. so marina lives right in between avenue victor hugo and avenue alsace-lorraine, placing us in the very heart of the old and lovely city, and from her doorstep it is seriously only about 30 feet to Cathedrale St. Andre. From her balcony we get this spectacular view of the cathedral tower, it's just beautiful.
we walked along the riverfront, went shopping at a french version of best buy, made lunch, acted like goofballs all day....she is such an amazing person, if i start i will never stop gushing about her. she is exactly the kind of person i have always wanted to have as a roommate, and living with her makes me want to move out and get my own place already. we went to a wonderful museum which traces the history of the region (aquitaine) from the cro-magnon period to the romans to the english rule (the brits owned bordeaux for many years!) and through the 20th century. it was absolutely fascinating to see the progression of people, technology, religion, and art. it was a massive and impressive collection, and best of all, it was free. :)
at night we went to watch the france-portugal match at marina's friend's apartment. it was an awful and boring game. as a trueblue soccer freak, very few games bore me but this one did. well france won, by a PENALTY KICK (what a shitty ass win, if you ask me), and they have advanced to the finals against italy (my personal favorite team along with england, though since i have been cheering for france all summer, the french team is actually growing on me). the partying in the streets was enormous and reminded me of spring break at the beach. people walking in front of the tram, holding up traffic, cars honking away, people roaming the streets with beer bottles in one hand and a big french flag in the other....soccer is bizarrely nationalistic and i havent quite figured out if thats a good thing or a bad thing. i suppose its a bit of both. we walked around taking in the festive atmosphere and then sat down for coffee in a plaza. unfortunately we chose the craziest district in town and in the center of the square people started popping firecrackers, throwing them at people and cars and apartment buildings. it was pretty scary actually, because they came very close to us several times. there were lots of drunk people and the streets smelled like piss (which usually goes hand in hand with drunk people).
tomorrow i will meet cecilia (another french friend, who also lives in bordeaux) for lunch, but after that im on my own as marina works all day. i will have fun getting totally lost (i love narrow and quiet alleyways and bordeaux has TONS). i bought my parents a bottle of very expensive and high quality wine today, and i decided that i should go visit the chateau and vineyard where it was grown and bottled. so i bought a train ticket for 15 euros round trip and i will spend all of friday in this little town called st. emilion, and in the afternoon i will take a tour of the castle and vineyard where my bottle was made. i find that utterly charming, that i can visit the soil where my wine grew. there is something so familial and seductive about that.
luv,
sam