I woke up at 430 AM and was unable to fall back asleep. I listened to music and watched the sunrise and packed my bag and soon it was time to head to the train station anyway. Exhausted but wide awake, we made our train. I completely forgot that you are supposed to validate your train tickets before you get on trains in France, so we had a "oops, sorry" moment when the conductors came by.
We arrived in Bordeaux around noon and met up with our host, Ming. Ming is from China but is doing astrophysics research here. I am constantly surprised and excited by how many people from countries other than European countries we have met through CS, either as hosts or as fellow travelers. After we dropped all of our bags off at Ming's flat, he commenced to give us a lengthy tour of Bordeaux. He said he had a Google map in his head and the route was 8 km. I told him we weren't really into museums, but then on the tour he kept taking us to churches and I didn't have the heart to tell him that we weren't really into churches either...
We stopped at a little shop for lunch where I discovered Croque Chevre sandwiches - amazing. While we ate on a bench close to water and flowers and grass I asked Ming about his family. He is the first generation of China's one child policy. His mother and father both have 4 or 5 siblings each, and he said the policy was a little strange for Chinese people because they traditionally love children. But he said that people are okay with it, and that China provides good access to birth control, and that the government is so strong that everybody just follows. He says if the government decided to change the policy that within 5 or 10 years most families would begin having more children again. He said you need to get permission to have more than one child, but that you must pay a fine (which he says is not that much money and not a problem at all for rich people that want to have more than one child). Very interesting discussing this with him.
Then the rains came. And when it rains in south west France in the summer time, it RAINS! It was like flash flood quality and we were soaked within minutes. Thank goodness for quick dry pants. We waited out the downpour inside a Virgin Records store. They had quite a few books and I found some books that I've read in English. Of course they're in French here but I could read the back summaries really fluently!!! This was very exciting to me and inspires me to buy some of my favorite books in French to practice reading. This is not a new idea to me but I've just never acted on the thought before. Maybe I will now though.
Back out in the world once the downpour stopped, Ming led us all over town. We went to at least three different churches and two different bell towers. We also walked along the river, crossed some bridges, saw a bunch of cows on parade, saw the grand theater, old city gates, and the water mirror. The water mirror is this really cool fountain type thing. It's a large rectangular flat surface that kids run/jump/play on, and also bicycle, scooter, etc. on. Every so often, without warning, the ground will start misting. This mist doesn't get you too wet, it's just fun to play in. When the mist is done, the ground burbles spontaneously and kids chase around the quickly disappearing streams of water. I think acting like a little kid is good for your soul, and really, that's what quick dry pants are for - playing in fountains. I stripped off my shoes and socks and rolled up my pants and walked around the fountain thoroughly entertained by the children and scene in general. Laura and Ming watched me act like a child, they're too big for those kind of silly games.
Side note: Ming things I'm weak because I got sick during our trip. I feel fine now, but I have a slight cough that refuses to go away. Every time I cough, Ming makes a comment about how weak I am. It's gotten pretty embarrassing and a little awkward by now. He also told me about this Chinese method of cleansing your system, where you dilute peroxide and snort it through your nose and spit it out through your mouth. He said Chinese people do this and they never get sick.
Bordeaux is infinitely dirtier than I imagined. It's actually quite gross. When I think of Bordeaux, I think of red wine, which makes me think of clean, proper, sophisticated, suburban people. I figured Bordeaux would be some kind of reflection of that, but it's not. It's pretty disgusting. There is trash everywhere. Especially due to the flash rains and wind, flea markets we walked through looked like a hurricane had gone through them. They were destroyed, books soaking on the ground, broken glass everywhere, half eaten sandwiches lying around. It was just a mess!!! Yuck. Worst of all, there's a spot in the river where "clean" water is coming in. I don't think Ming was totally right about this though, because he said "clean" but I saw FILTHY black water running into a FILTHY yellow river filled with debris. The contrast in water colors was so distinct; I've never seen anything like it. Then you can see where they blend in and finally where there's no different in water color. It's a really depressing ecological site.
We were about 3/4 of the way done with our tour. It had been 6 hours and we were very tired so we asked Ming if we could go home. I think he may have been a little put off by not being able to finish his tour. I felt kind of badly but I was so tired, I was getting hungry, and we had seen quite a lot of the city.
We stopped by a store on the way home to grab some pasta and sauce (and I talked Laura into buying Lu cookies from Nantes!) and went home. Ming shared some of his nice Bordeaux wine with us and I ate while watching Australia get positively destroyed by Germany in the World Cup.
Sometime around 1030 or 11, Ming asked if we were ready to go out again so he could show us the night view of the city. The view he wanted to show us was probably a good 45 minutes away. Again, we were like, no...we're tired!!! And again, I think he may have been a little put off :/
Also sometime this evening, a Polish girl and her mother came to surf with Ming just for a few hours. Their train left at 4 AM the next day, which is crazy to me, but it was pretty cool having somebody and their mom surfing together!! The Polish girl had been studying in Bordeaux so she was friends with Ming (she surfed with him when she first came here). She and Ming both kept going on and on about the Dune dy Pyla, this huge sand dune close to Bordeaux. I spent the evening researching the dune and talking with them about how to get there, and I think we'll try to see what that's all about tomorrow.
Quotes:
"There's much less of them now, because of evolution. And also, because we ate them." - Ming, discussing pigeons in China.
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