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Published: November 7th 2007
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Hamilton and Me
Outside the Chateau, my second visit to Chez Henri IV Hi everyone! So this entry finds me finally back at home Chez Canterot after an amazing sojourn to Corsica with fellow Furman French grad Hamilton over the Toussaint vacation! I'm absolutely about to explode with stories about my trip, and I've got hundreds of new photos as well, so in the interest of keeping your heads from exploding with a super long entry, I'm splitting up my break into "Mainland France" and "Corsica". Here's the mainland France edition....
Our adventure started in Pau. I got up super early to go and find Hamilton at the train station, where he’d taken a night train from Rennes. We spent the morning touring around town and visiting the Chateau before we met Sam for dinner. We ended up at a fondue restaurant recommended to me by Dr. Strickland called “au fruit defondue”, which is a fun little pun for you francophones out there. We had a very agreeable evening of frying things in oil and discussing the finer points of the French language. Sam was nice enough to give Hamilton a place to sleep for the two nights we were in Pau, which saved him having to find a hotel room.
The
Bayonne
Georg, Leslie, Hamilton and me hanging out in Basque country next day, we decided to take a train to Bayonne. Originally, it was just going to be Hamilton and me, but Sam decided to tag along, and then Georg, who called Leslie and Martin, and before you knew it, it was “The language assistants descend on Bayonne!” Bayonne is a city in the Pays Basque, that fiercely independent little semi-country spread out between France and Spain. In that sense, it’s kind of like Corsica, but without the island. They have their own language and their own way of doing things. They do a sort of mini “running of the bulls” in the summer, and Sam told us it’s so crowded you can’t even move through the streets. We spent a fun day walking along the river, hanging out in cafes, and looking at churches before heading back to Pau. Georg and Sam had bought a chess set that morning at Galaries Laffayette to help pass the time, and the expletives in three different languages from their side of the train certainly did liven things up.
The next day, it was off to Bordeaux on the 2 o’clock train, but not before Christine and Patrick invited us for a lovely
You had to be there...
From what I remember, this photo has something to do with Georg crushing something with Leslie? lunch at the house. I love the Canterot’s more with each passing day. Christine showed me on a map of Bordeaux where our hotel would be, told me to check for the airport shuttles, and lent me the map to take with us. Patrick dropped us off at the train station, and Sabine told me to call her cell phone if I had any trouble. So once we got to Bordeaux, we took the highly efficient tram line to the right bank, searching for our hotel. Here, things got slightly less efficient, because we started off by walking in the wrong direction. Once we got that straightened out, it was still a pretty long haul, but we managed. Once we dropped our stuff, we headed back into the city for dinner. We walked around the shopping district some, then found a restaurant where we could watch what few trick-or-treaters there were running around the square and setting off noise makers. Walking back, we passed a bar decorated for Halloween, and since there was a guy with a sword through his head and a pitchfork standing outside hissing at everyone, I hissed back at him. We caught the very last bus
back to our hotel, and when the driver found out where we were staying, he said he’d drop us right at the entrance if we’d just stick with him through the rest of the route. “I’m going to show you a little bit of the ‘burbs,” he joked. While this was very nice of him, it proved to be easier said than done, because we were holding onto the bus supports for dear life while the bus swerved like one of those mousetrap rollercosters at a county fair. Battered and bruised, we exited the bus and called it a night.
The next morning we got up to squeeze in a little bit of Bordeaux before we got to the airport. We saw the Eglise St. Andre in all of its towering glory, and walked along the banks of the Garonne. We also saw the Monument des Girondins, built to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the French revolution. Then it was off to the airport for our flight to Marsailles, and then on to Bastia. So French airport security is not exactly like in the US. We were way early for our flight, and tried to get through security so
Basque country
See the pretty red and white houses? They all have to be painted that way. It's a law. we could chill, but the nice Air France lady turned us away because we were too early. The flight went smoothly, and then we had our lovely 5 hour layover in Marsailles, where we were served dinner by a nice young waiter determined to practice his English on us. It was actually very good, except for the part where he wished us “A Good Appetite”. I guess that’s slightly better than Hamilton’s students, who saw him headed to the cafeteria one day and told him to have “A Happy Meal”.
So that's it for "Mainland France". Tune in later this week for the scintilating Corsica edition. Will Hamilton and I die out in the Corsican wilderness? Will we be attacked by a herd of wild boar or gamble away our life savings in Ajaccio's casino? Only time will tell!
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Murdock
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favorite quotes from this post...
"I hissed back at him." "Will Hamilton and I die out in the Corsican wilderness?" Love the chess picture, very nice. The others are great too! Post more soon!