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Allison, Denise, and I didn’t want to miss our last excursion with the whole BEF gang, so we tried to catch up with them in the Perigord region of France. The excursion was Friday through Sunday, and while we were flying Friday, we still thought it was possible to make it to most of the excursion. We landed at Charles DeGaulle and took a TGV straight to Bordeaux, getting there about midnight. We stayed in a hotel with the most comfortable beds ever (or maybe that’s just compared to Hotel Rachel in Aegina—I think I forgot to mention that all three beds there were so horrible in their different ways that each night we rotated beds, so each morning we would wake up sore in a different way. But alas, we were only in this new hotel in Bordeaux with the comfy beds for about six hours because our three hour train to Sarlat (where BEF was) left at 7 am Saturday morning.
W were all pretty tired, but seeing Mme Fazelly’s smiling face waiting for us at the Sarlat train station made our day. She was so excited to see us—and after being gone for about 23 days (not
that we were counting) we were so excited to see her too! There’s no place like France! Speaking in French again was a bit of an adjustment though, so we were thankful we had this weekend to adjust as opposed to jumping right back in with our host families.
We went outside the train station to get a taxi, but there were none there. Curious. So Mme Fazelly called a taxi number that was posted. And they told her there were no taxis that morning. So she tried a second number. They also said it wasn’t possible for them to send a taxi. On the fourth try, we got a response that one would come in fifteen minutes for us. I’ve never experienced such reluctant taxi services in Europe. Finally an approximately 60-year-old woman with long, white hair came in a station wagon to pick us up. New demographic of taxi driver too.
The rest of the group was on a guided tour of the city, so Mme Fazelly took us out to a late breakfast. We found a cute little patisserie that had some deal if you got coffee, fromage blanc (like yogurt), and 2 pastries. Mme
thought this was a fabulous idea, but Denise, Allison, and I weren’t convinced—those pastries were huge!
“Which two do you want Allison?” Mme asked. Allison pointed to one and said that she only wanted one, but Mme kept insisting, “No, what’s the second one you want?” Allison gave in, as did Denise and I in the end. Denise hadn’t wanted the fromage blanc, and Allison hadn’t wanted the coffee, but before we knew it, we were all being served enough breakfast to last the entire weekend.
Soon afterward, we reunited with the rest of the BEF gropu (minus Annie who hadn’t been able to make it because of the volcano). We got to wander around Sarlat, a very cute tourist town with a big market. It was so beautiful, and so nice and French after such a long time in Italy and Greece. Afterward we went to the castle of Beynac (it wouldn’t be a true excursion without an old French castle thrown in). It was beautiful, but we got a guided tour with a bunch of real live French people. We stared at the guide with wide eyes and open mouths the entire six hours of the
tour (or 45 minutes, but it seemed like 6 hours).
From there, we drove through the Perigord region of France to the town of Rocamadour where our hotel was. The drive was absolutely gorgeous. Wide open green fields and cute little houses here and there. The city we stayed in was really cool because it was situated on a cliff that we climbed down.
That night we had a nice dinner with Foie Gras (I was the only one who tried it—everyone else was too scared) and lamb—both specialties of the region. We also threw a bebé douche (we just directly translated baby shower into French since they don’t exist in France) for our Bucknell professor and his girlfriend who were there. We made up a version of the Newlywed Game—Mackenzie’s subtle way of asking her oh-so-many questions.
The next day we got up and went to a goat cheese farm. I’m not really sure why. I think Mme Fazelly thought we would like seeing the goats, which we did. We got off the bus, were on a farm, walked into a barn, saw some goats, then saw a newborn goat, the walked out back, saw some
pigs in a pen, then hopped back on the bus after probably 20 minutes. I never actually saw the Farmer person who was in charge. But it was fun I guess.
Then we went to Le Gouffre de Padirac, which were huge underground caves with a river running threw them! We climbed down a ton of stairs to get to the bottom of the huge hole in the ground, and then followed the lit path underground to the river where they had boats to paddle us around! It was kind of like we were in Venise…but underground and there’s no gelato. And there’s only one route. And there are stalactites and stalagmites everywhere and water dripping all around you. So maybe the only similar thing is that there’s a guy standing on the back of a boat paddling. Nonetheless, it was pretty sweet. Sadly, they wouldn’t let us take pictures after we got on the boat…
After our tour of the caves, we opted to take the elevators all the way back up to ground level before having lunch and heading back to Tours. Finally.
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