Bonjour! Merci Beaucoup.

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The title of this entry is appropriate for two reasons: 1) I went to France for the whole day today; and 2) These are the only two useful phrases I know in French (there is one more, but saying “Shut your mouth” is only useful in so many situations). Some of my friends and I took a bus for only 16€ from Bilbao, Spain, to Biarritz, France. It was a little less than a 3 hour drive and because both France and Spain are EU countries, I might as well have been driving from Illinois to Wisconsin—no passport needed (Just one more reason I like the EU: Free movement of people, goods, and money between EU countries).

Despite my lack of knowledge of French, it was relatively easy to communicate with shop owners in Biarritz. Apparently Biarritz is a popular tourist destination for Spaniards and some English speaking countries as well. If someone didn’t understand what I was saying in English I could switch to Spanish (and vice versa) and they would understand in most cases.

Besides wandering around aimlessly looking at shops and signs in French, I spent most of the day—of course—on the beach. I was surprised and happy to find that the beach had far less nudity than I have become accustomed to in Spain. There are some things you just don’t want to see… After being thrashed about by the waves several times, drying off, and de-sanding ourselves, one of my friends and I decided to go to the pastry shop we had seen earlier that day. I got…well, I don’t know what it’s called, but it was a solid chocolate pastry. It’s hard to compare this one to the pastry I had in Segovia the first week I got to Spain because they were so different. I’m just happy to say that I’ve eaten Spanish and French pastries! (I’ve included pictures of this pastry as well. Why not?) We left Biarritz at 6:45 and got back around 9:45.

Something happened on the bus that I’ve always wanted to happen. I was sitting next to a lady who was obviously Basque and who spoke no English (also, she looked like Angel from “RENT,” if you’re familiar with the musical). All of this was good and well except that she made the mistake of assuming that none of us spoke any Spanish and as such began talking about us (not saying nice things) to her friends across the bus. She kept insisting (in Spanish) that we had no idea what she was saying. After a while I thought it would be a good joke to start talking to one of the girls I came with (sitting in front of me) in Spanish. Basque-Lady shut up pretty quickly. Forgive me for feeling smug.

Well, now I’m going to write some papers for my two classes (“Papers” is an overstatement). I’ll see you all soon (16 days, by my mother’s count, right mom? ).

Hástalo!

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