l'Arc de Achoniumph

I'm back in Bordeaux from over the weekend. Most of this post will be about Arcachon, so there you have my reason for putting that as my location. And because you folks are so deeply patient, I'm adding in a video.

I had planned to leave Saturday morning from Bordeaux to Arcachon due to the clearing of skies and wanting to beat the incoming rainfall. In checking my Couchsurfing account, I came to find I would've had a host for every night here! (I failed to check it when I posted last) Anyhow, I sent a message to Daniel, who'd okay'd Friday, to see if he'd take me in Saturday evening and to text my cell phone in case I couldn't get to the internet again. If I didn't hear from him, it was off to Arcachon I would go.

As it would turn out, he did text back with directions to his place. The interesting thing about my first CS experience was that both Daniel (19) and Mike (one of the flatmates turning 21 that very evening) were studying abroad in France for a year. Originally hailing from Tulsa, Oklahoma they were both studying linguistics. Now, one could make the argument, WHY HANG OUT WITH AMERICANS? Valid to a point, but check it. Daniel has been here since the beginning of summer. Mike, just a week. One with a pretty good idea of the kinds of crap I'd run into; the other with fresh gripes to gripe about and tips on things he's just getting used to himself. Very good perspective to have this early on yes?

Now they have another roomate named Mitea (spelling butchered I'm sure), who's Italian and speaks broken english and french. Very entertaining to see them trying to communicate simple ideas with him. Mike seemed relieved after awhile, (I sensed skepticism on his part when it came to having a stranger in his flat) and commented on how good it was to talk to the first American he'd seen since he'd been here. Not having to think about every conjugation and so forth. Went out to get groceries for dinner. Come to find out that plastic bags do indeed cost more and don't just come free with your purchase. Weird.

In making tortilla wraps, we come to find that Mitea hadn't clarified the part where there were more guests coming that were expecting to eat. A half dozen more tortilla wraps later, I finally got to meet the guests.

Key players: Sarah - of England; Justine - the blonde haired, blue-eyed gal born in Zimbabwe who moved to England and now France (crazy wicked accent); Bianca (sooo beautiful) and Anca - the two Romanian gals; the two Italians - Mitea and this gal I cannot remember the name of; the Columbian-born fellow named Leo (or its Spanish equivalent) and then us Americans to top us off at 10.

If you need up to speed... a bunch of different races, but not a french person in the appartment.

I had trouble at first because most were practicing their french. I jumped in when I could understand what was going on. Eventually I cut my losses and busted out my dice. The numbers game was going down (the dice/writing with pen to 100 game) Super entertaining hearing people having to translate the rules and all. Waaaay cool. Followed up with Spoons (the card/spoon game). It was interesting to note that only Mike had played spoons, and it was all new to everyone. If you ever hear of someone calling a game Bordeaux, it's what I told them the numbers game was called... that would mean I started a world-wide trend. And that I also rule.

Before the gals left, it turned into a dance party and drinks were had in celebration of an otherwise anti-climatic 21st birthday. (France's drinking age is either 16 or 18... and even then they don't card). Eventually we walked the 3 or so miles from north Bordeaux to a discotheque. The bouncer was not about to have 4 more dudes coming into the club, so Mitea told him we were all exchange students from America.

Inside the club there were two cover charges. 3€ sans conso / 8€ avec conso. Meaning, you had to pay 5€ more to be able to purchase alcohol. Get through the mass of sweaty bodies to find a pile of soused Germans mixing their own drinks. One of which ended up taking Daniel's sweatshirt off his back, putting it on, and running off somewhere with a lit cigarette. When he came back and Daniel attempted to get it back, the German gave him a cigarette instead of coming to an agreement. While Daniel lit up, the German sneakily made his way through the crowd again. Never to be seen ever again. A bouncer sees Daniel with the lit cigarette in the club in the non-smoking area and tries to kick him out.

That's when he puts on his "Clueless American" act that he'd previously told me about. He started flailing his arms wailing, "I don't understand what you're saying! I'm from the UNITED STATES!" adding emphasis to his American accent as need be. The bouncer gave a look as if to say, "I'm in over my head, I'm getting backup" and let him go. We spent the rest of the time looking for that jacket and dodging the bouncers.

For those of you who from Steilacoom who know Sean McCann, Alex Sams, and Kennedy Carda you can picture Daniel as a combonation of all three. Thus, you can understand why I befriended these Oklahomans so easily and why it was good to hang out with Americans. It curbed whatever homesickness that could've been on the horizon.

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In the morning, slightly dehydrated from the night before, I offered the idea of Arcachon to Daniel and Mike. Mike would be spending his birthday with one of the british gals from the night before. Daniel was to make use of free museum day. I said my goodbyes to new friends, and I was off.

Arcachon's an hour train ride. I'd originally wanted to bike it as they have a rails to trails line connecting the two. But! Totally not up for it at this point in the journey. The centre ville is full of hotels competing for prices. Thus! Cheap ** hotels everywhere. I spotted a laverie (laundry mat) right off the bat, and since it was day 5 of 5 of my clothing, needed it severely.

The rain came in a bit on Sunday. I spent most of my evening walking around looking for bookstores and toy shops that I could check out in the morning. Some majorly awesome views around every corner; along with hordes upon hordes of retired folk and pine trees. (Coming from Steilacoom, this was just another taste of home.) I ended up falling asleep to an episode of Les Simpsons.

The dunes are incredible and surely put the ones at the J.M. Honeyman campgrounds in Florence, Oregon to shame. I underestimated how tall 117 or so meters is. I'd been worrying this whole time about rain, as I should. But in this instance, for another reason. With how steep that sucker is; and the extremely thin layer of dry sand on compacted wet.... well I say it's like navigating black ice when skiing or snowboarding. I bit it sooo very many times in front of some school children that were on a field trip. All and all, it's awesome to say that I've successfully used that chunk of wood that's been at my side for nearly a week. And I look forward to many more days with it, as La Poste does not seem to sell boites cartons (cardboard boxes). When I do find some, the board goes home along with souveniers that are adding excessive weight.

I feel there is so much more, and there is.... yet this is all that surfaces at this time. I think I'll hang out in Toulouse for a night before heading to Carcassonne. I'll decide in about a half hour quand j'achete mon billet. (when i buy my ticket).

So much for this being primarily about Arcachon.

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