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Published: September 1st 2007
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St EMILION - 8th May 2007 (Tuesday 21º Partly Cloudy)
Today is a Public Holiday to mark the Liberation of France and the end of WWII.
Homemade crepes with castor sugar for breakfast. C’EST YUM!
Today we are going into Bordeaux for a look around this big city. We drive to within 5 kilometres of the city centre, park the Ford Focus Ferrari and wait to catch the train. Well it looks more like a Tram but we are assured it is a train (see photo).
This city is in the process of reinventing itself. The current Mayor has embarked upon a modernisation and beautification program. He has ordered the boulevards be restored and widened, he has given right of way to pedestrians in areas formerly governed by l’automobiles, he is responsible for the modern train/tram and a bunch of other exciting things that are half done right now. It does give the City that feeling that there is a permanent “Wet Paint” sign hanging on the doorknob but it will be fantastic once finished.
We spend an hour in the Cathedral Saint Andre listening to a service for Returned Veterans and those that didn’t come
Your guess is as good as mine!
Not sure if the Pizza's have drug fueled Rabbit on them or they are delivered with the Speed of a Rabbit! home. We wander through the main shopping streets - the shops could be the same shops as anywhere else in the world except for one very special Pizza joint that we see and have to photograph - what in the hell is Speed Rabbit Pizza? There is one other thing we find to like about French shops and in particular their Supermarkets - they have great wine selections. The Supermarkets here have liquor sections that are larger than most of the Bottle Shops back home.
There is a wealth of history in the form of Cathedrals, Squares, Antiquated Buildings and Fountains in the city and now they have shiny new public transport and car free malls. It sounds gaudy but in my experience there is no better example of blending the old and the new than is presented here in Bordeaux.
Seeing as this is a slow news day I am going to close with a personal observation that I made whilst in France. In my Year 10 French lessons it was not my sole purpose to learn French - in fact that was the furtherest thing from my mind at that time. No the challenge was see
if I (and my classmates) could get our 80 year old French Teacher (Brother Xavier) to swear in French. This was usually easily done with a smart remark or badly rounded vowel or two. Anyway back to my observation - I didn’t think I had taken any of these lessons onboard until I found myself saying things “dans le français” (in French) that I didn’t even recall knowing. They would just slip out as though uttered by a stranger but they were usually correct and used at the right time (though I cannot vouch for the accent).
So thank you Brother Xavier - you may now rest in peace as your hard work was not all in vain.
Italian for Dinner and back home to knock the top off some local produce. I finish a small watercolour painting and we fall into the sack.
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