La vie française: Bordeaux picture dump!

Happy 2006, everyone! Wow, I haven't blogged since last year! The first 15 minutes after 12:00 AM on New Year's Day always consists of some banter of that sort between my siblings and me ("Wow! I haven't bathed since last year!" "I haven't gone to the bathroom since last year!")

Yes, I'm lazy. But here they are enfin - pictures confirming my stay in Bordeaux. I swear I wasn't making it up!



Why must I forever be living near cranes? Ah, well...the sunrise is pretty!



Is my room not the coolest? Note cute YuhChic-sized bed.



The view of outer Bordeaux from my bedroom window. A factory? A big ol' abandoned building? I dunno. I also "dunno" why I took this picture...probably because the apartment building in which I was staying was probably one of the tallest buildings (12 floors - my host family lived on the 11th) in a city where tall buildings don't really exist.



On my way to school, I decided to take a picture of a typical, middle-classish Bordeaux street. Note cute little cars. I think every single car I saw was a little hatchback of some sort.



Here we have it folks, the biggest French achievement since French toast (ignore accomplishments of Louis Pasteur and Marie Curie, s'il vous plaît): 7/7. What does this baffling "7/7" sign mean, you may ask? Weeeelll, I saw is (very) occasionally on the streets of Bordeaux, and it's a sign for a store that is open 7 days a week, 7 hours a day. OMG! Mindblowing for the French and the Europeans!!! Yeah, welcome to a realm of convenience. It's called "Everyday life" in America. Asia, too (my Korean friend, Ho-Young, and I were always like, "WTF? Why isn't anything open on Sunday? Why do stores close for 2-3 hours lunch breaks? Why does everything close by 6:00 PM? Why don't the French like competitive advantage?").

Okay, I'll have to admit that it wasn't that big of a deal to have stores closed (constantly...inconveniently...whenever you needed something...etc...), so I adopted a "When in Rome..." attitude about it. Still, I observed the inconvenience of business hours has interesting side effects of French business hours, namely, everyone in the whole of Bordeaux seemed to be up by 7:30, presumably to get stuff done before work (or maybe they just really like waking up early...?). Also, I may note that the only French business that seemed to be constantly open and busy was some barber guy named Stephane, whose tiny little shop I passed everyday on the way to and from school. Dude was snipping hair all day, everyday, constantly. Way to have some Protestant ethic in ya, Stephane (ignore the fact that France is primarily Catholic, s'il vous plaît)!

The occasional inconvenience and inefficiency of French living (not that it's a bad thing!) amused me throughout my stay. I just wanted to laugh and point when I saw a supermarket advertise proudly, "Now open Sunday! 9:15 AM to 11:00 AM!" WHAT?!? What good is it to open a store for an hour and 45 minutes?!?! Well, I guess that's as good as it gets sometimes in a country where there's a 35-hour work week (but you get paid for 39 hours...seriously!) and everyone gets 30 days of vacation. Like I said, it's not all bad that way. Maybe economically unsound (hello, Chicago school of economics!), but not all bad!



The Bordelais are quite proud of their tram system, which is apparently the first all-electric local rail in Europe. It is pretty neat, and, since the trains are very new (the system just got up and running in early 2004), it's delightfully clean. The only quirk is that the tram runs right on the street and, on the pedestrian streets, there are no (nay, zero, zip, nada!) divisions between where pedestrians can walk and where the trains run. Plus, the trains run very quietly (electric=no rumbling metal tracks) so you can't really tell when a train is approaching until it's very close. Yikes. Luckily, no accidents yet...but that's probably because I wasn't there long enough.



This is a view of Bordeaux's Public Garden. I took a short-cut through the garden everyday not only because it was very pretty, but also because it is obligatory to clean up after your dogs! Sweet, dog crap-less garden! I can only imagine that it looks even lovelier in nicer weather.



The Garonne, the river that flows through Bordeaux. The colors in this photo are weird, but it captures perfectly what France in the wintertime is all about: mad grayness.



This is the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Bordeaux, which I enjoyed immensely. The French seem to be really into the decorative arts. The museum is basically an old mansion that is furnished with original period furniture in the rooms. Very cool. It kind of smells like your grandma's house, except the furniture is cooler and not covered in plastic. At the time I visited, there was a special exhibit of Marie Antoinette's furniture there.



The entire left (I think?) bank of Bordeaux that runs along the Garonne is really quite neat - you can look from one end to the other, and all you will see is a line of beautiful white (thanks to recent cleaning!) neo-classical buildings. That's because all of the rich wine merchants, the government, rich traders, etc. built their houses, warehouses, and official buildings all along the bank of the Garonne. It's really quite stunning in person. Unique, too...I think they are applying for UNESCO World Heritage status, since there is really no place else like it in France (or, apparently, the world).


Vines! Miles and miles of vines, I tells ya! Apparently, it's a much cooler sight when the vines are in bloom. Eh, I'll take what I can get. It's still quite pretty, though, n'est-ce pas?



The damage I caused during a wine tasting...yeah, right!



Ooooh, basement full of aging wine! Thumbs up indeed.



Don't mind my messy hair - I was too busy pretending to know what I was sniffing to care. I got to keep the glass as a souvenir! Yeah, free stuff!



That cute l'il French village of St. Emilion, which is also the name of a wine appellation (incidentally, a kickin' wine). This photo was taken from the top of the church that was blasted into the limestone cave. Spiffy.



Look! It's Louis XIV visiting a Bordeaux vineyard! This is from that diorama place, Vinorama, that I was talking about. In actuality, it kinda sucked. Certainly not worth the 4-something Euro that I paid. BOO!


Sidenote/Correction of the Day
Ah, and a correction: I've recently read that Bordeaux is a city of 600,000-700,000 people, not the 250,000-esque that I alluded to earlier. Hmm, I wonder if that includes the surrounding suburbs. Anyhoo, not like you care. I just didn't want you all to be up in my grill if you heard otherwise. Word.