Both J-Sak and I are thrilled to get to Bordeaux because of two things: we get to do laundry and most of our clothes have been quarantined for a freakin' week, and, we got a great deal on a private hotel room with a kitchenette! All we wanted to do was to have clean clothes and to sleep! The only problem was, the directions on the hotel's website stated to get off at main train station and the hotel would be right there. Not true. Not true at all. The directions failed to mention that the hotel is actually a 10 minute walk from the train station. Luckily, a very friendly guy named Antonio spotted that we were lost (do we really stick out that much?) and walked us to the hotel. So nice. A nice Frenchie, who knew!? (Oh, just kidding! Plus, I don't think I have any French friends anyways!). We arrived at the hotel only to discover that the reception had closed at 7 pm and we were locked out! Nooo! After standing outside the entrance for a few minutes, pondering our next step, Jeni sees and ATM looking machine with the hotel logo on it down the street. A computerized check-in service, brilliant! Much faster and more effective than our Parisian friend, Reggie! Pop in your credit card and the machine spits out your room key. Our room is great! Clean bathroom, no bugs and our own space...it was like a mini apartment. At this point on our trip, we had been on the road for 3 weeks and needed a little down time and some space. Good night world! We hit the lights and slept for 11 long hours...
We awoke at almost noon the next day. October 28th, it was going to be a good day...it was Jeni's birthday...and it was the first time in 4 years that I was with J-Sak on her birthday because she lived in Edmonton while I was living in Victoria. We wanted to keep the day low key, still resting up from our previous 3 weeks of travel. We strolled the shopping streets and decided to check out what Bordeaux had to offer. Well, there is not much actually. The city itself is not too nice and there is dog sh!t everywhere (another common theme throughout the next few weeks of our trip, and yes, I do come into contact with it...several times!). That evening I make Jeni a birthday dinner in our Bordeaux "apartment"...seasoned chicken, pasta with tomato sauce, a salad, a baguette and, of course, wine. Jeni is now into drinking what is called a Gin Fizz...gin, lemon juice and Sprite. We also grab fresh pastries for desert from a bakery down the street...delicious, my gawd! No birthday would be official without candles, and lots of em'! I laced J-Sak's dessert with at least 10 candles that she was actually unable to blow out! They were trick candles or something, that kept burning and burning! The more she tried to blow them out, the more they smoked and scattered ash everywhere. I'm surprised our smoke alarm didn't go off. Those of you who know Jeni, you can ask to see the video of this whole episode...it's all on camera, and it's pretty hysterical!
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| WoOo-oooO-OOo-OO! Barbara Streisand! |
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| Happy Birthday Buddy! |
Our second day in Bordeaux ended up being a write off. I had encouraged us to venture to Bordeaux because I heard that it is France's wine country and I really wanted to do a wine tour. Though Jeni's not into wine that much, she agreed that it would be a neat experience. Seriously people, we tried, as best we could to check out a winery just outside of Bordeaux but the cards were not in our favor. The area around Bordeaux has hundreds of wineries that tourists can visit, so we stopped at the Bordeaux Tourist Information Centre for more details. No one could give us any information or help us in anyway. It was pathetic, really. I was so frustrated with the people working at the tourist office...I could go into more detail, but it's long and negative. So, we decided to figure out our itinerary and transportation route ourselves, and we got quite far, but in the end, it didn't work out. We just needed a bit of guidance with a few things, and no one we spoke with was willing to lend us a hand. Screw you, Bordeaux! Ahhh well, maybe a wine tour in Spain? Bordeaux let us relax and build up energy for the second half our our Euro trip. In fact, as we were waiting for our night train to arrive to take us from Bordeaux to Nice that night, October 29th, Jeni and I stopped for a bite to eat and raised a glass to toast: to the second half! To much more adventures to come!
And we were on to Nice...
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