It’s been a more than a month since I was there, but I’ll try to explain why Bulgaria was so awesome

Our plane landed and we took the most terrifying taxi ride ever to our hostel. Our taxi driver actually cut off a cop, and got away with it- you can’t make this stuff up. In between being slightly convinced that I might die, I got really excited about all the Cyrillic everywhere. It was like signs had become an awesome puzzle- what initially looks like complete gibberish becomes something you understand if you just sound it out. 

For example: g-a-r-a-j

            We arrived at our hostel, and checked in.

Hostel and Kitty

            Then we went off in search of food. We were planning on eating at a place that the hostel had recommended to us. A random American we met at the atm by our hostel joined us. But she ended up being ridiculously pretentious:

Her:  I teach english in Istanbul- I HATE English.

Us: (later, after she was gone) That first part is really cool, but the second part, not so much. Also, if you hate it so much, why do you teach it?

And then she bailed on us at a random pizza place that we later frequented.

The food at our restaurant was good a ridiculously cheap. It was awesome.

The next morning we had planned to join a walking tour of the city, but it ended up being canceled. Therefore we took ourselves on the walking tour (which was conveniently labeled on our map).

I saw my first mosque looking mosque I’ve seen:

It kind of pales in comparison to the mosques I saw later in Istanbul...

Sofia was a city of dogs, inexpensiveness, and awesome broken downess. The company was great, and the city was great. And I suppose that’s all that’s necessary for awesome. 

We saw the bathes, which were closed, and then we went into an appliance/ electronics store. Then we continued towards the former building of the communist party. This required us to do a rather large loop because they were blocking off a section of road inexplicably. So we saw lots of pretty things- I am quite fond of yellow buildings. 

Then we saw this: 

Orthodox cathedral...

Which is the main attraction of Sofia, I guess. There was a huge line to get in the whole time we were there. But the people who were in line weren’t necessarily touristy type people.

In fact, Sofia was very untouristy. I get the impression that the touristy parts of Bulgaria are the countryside and the coast which feature beautiful nature, and possibly resorts. Sofia was not a resort. But I thought it was beautiful, even if lots of it was falling apart.

We visited a mall on the out skirts of the map (our map didn’t show all of Sofia, just the main city center, we kind of felt that this implied that if you go off the map you might die/ be abducted by aliens or other creatures.) Then we sat on a grassy knoll and talked and admired doggies. 

Then we headed back to the hostel for a nap. When we arrived in our room it was empty except for one girl, sitting in her bed watching something on her iphone. It was around 3 o’clock.  We left a few hours later to get dinner – the girl was still sitting there with her iphone. We ate pizza at the place pretentious girl abandoned us at (1.60 lev, or 0.80 euro cents per gigantic slice). And then headed to bar that the hostel had recommended. We spent the most of the evening there just hanging out. Later we stopped at another bar for one drink, and then we came back to the hostel.

We made friends with a Dutch girl and New Zealander guy who met in Peru, and accidently insulted a girl from Georgia. And we talked to a guy who wanted to drive down the coast of California, which led to Tristan and I arguing about whether or not the 1 goes all the way to San Diego (I WON) during which the guy walked away which was funny. We also talked to a guy who was teaching English somewhere in eastern Europe, which I think sounds really awesome. So all in all we had a fantastic first day.

The next day we had considered getting up early and taking a train to another Bulgarian city, but we ended up being up until around 3 (the girl was still sitting in her bed watching her iphone) so we decided that getting up early would not lead to happiness. So we wandered around Sofia again, and took pictures to prove that we were actually there. Then we came back and took naps- but they were unfortunately fail naps due to our newly acquired French roommate. When we entered the room we found him wearing just underwear- so we both figured he had just gotten out of the shower or something and we had caught him at an unfortunate time. So we get in bed. Then I hear grunting/ heaving breathing, which turned out to be because he was in the middle of out room still wearing just underwear doing sit ups. Weird- no?  So I put on my ipod and turn it up. Enter two more new roommates- French Canadians. Underwear guy scoots to the side and continues his sit ups while conversing with them in French. This displeases me, but I’m not willing to give up my nap yet. Then I feel a presence near my bed, and I look to find that this man, still wearing only his underwear, is using the top bunk to stretch- ie his foot is by Tristan’s head, despite the fact that there were three other vacant bunks, one of which was his. Thus, we quickly gave up on the nap because this was hella uncomfortable making. We went into the common room and lounged about- Tristan watched a soccer game and I fell asleep. Nothing much happened this night, except that we went to sleep earlyish, and then got up for a midnight snack at 3 am. Yeah. (I’m not sure why I wrote yeah here, but I’m leaving it.)

The next day we had some time to kill before our flight. So we walked to the train station. This walk took us through some less nice areas of Sofia, but they still looked better than Bordeaux 3. The train station itself was kind of epic- especially the subterranean store area which was completely abandoned except a few dogs.

Then we took a taxi to the airport and arrived WAY early. This led to me buying some Bulgaria playing cards with a different picture on each cards (and some postcards). And then we played an EPIC game of war, using the jokers as gods who pawn everyone else. One of the gods was quite fickle and he kept switching sides. The other stayed loyal to Tristan almost to the end, however, he eventually jumped ship, leaving me the undisputed winner. Unfortunately, these cards have disappeared of the face of the planet, which is sad because they were kind of awesome.

We flew to Paris, stayed over night in a hotel, and left early the next morning on a train for Bordeaux.

And that is why Bulgaria was awesome.

Are you hungry? No, but I’m IN Hungary! And other adventures.

At the airport, Lisa and I found the saddest panda in the world, and then we played Every Word (given letters you have to find “every word”, particularly the longest word) on my kindle.

We arrived in Budapest without event and found our hostel, “The Goat Hostel”, located in a nondescript building. We buzzed up.

Me: This is a pretty nifty windy stair case.

Lisa: Your FACE is a nifty windy staircase

Me: HEY!

Lisa: Would you rather your face was a boring staircase?

Me: I suppose you have a point there

Hostel keeper at the top of the stairs: …

Then we went off in quest for food.

To our glee, everything in hungry is pretty cheap because of the 260 Forints: 1 euro exchange rate. We were so excited that we ordered food until our meal cost about 9 euros each anyway. I had chicken wrapped in bacon with broccoli and corn, a fairly strange crepe (that they called a pancake on the menu) filled with cottage cheese and apples, and a strawberry colada. Lisa had spaghetti noodles, a fruit tart, and a cocktail of some kind. Then we did math for fun. Conversion math. It was surprisingly entertaining.

Food + cocktails + math = fun

Don’t you love math?

Then we wandered around a bit and met up with Tristan and his girlfriend, Reka. And together we went to a Scotland themed bar, and then a bar in which you can get 10 beers for the equivalent of $10 (this seems extra amazing if you have only ever been to a bar in a country in which one beer costs 6 euro). They were not large beers, probably more like half pints, but still.

Then we walked around with plans of seeing the pretty things, but it turned out they were no longer lit. So we went home, it was around 2:30.

The next morning we had plans to meet Reka and Tristan at the Museum of Terror at around 11.   On the way, we walked by a billion “Antiqukonivm” (used book stores), in one of which I bought Harry Potter és a Bölcsek Köve. Which brings me glee despite the fact that I can’t really read very much of it/ any of it.

In the end we ended up splitting with Tristan and Reka, as they had some specific things they wanted to see, and we wanted to see the main things because we only had one day. We went to this gigantic park and saw some really beautiful things:

And I found my favorite bridge in all the world.

And we explored to the sound of “native American” music which was slightly confusing.

I climbed in a fountain in order to put my teddy bear in it.

Then we wandered aimlessly and saw a girl riding a pony through the awesome Hungarian park and we were extremely jealous. 

We became peckish (word just automatically corrected this to be “puckish”. What does that word even mean?!)  and tried to wander out of the park to somewhere that might have food. Tristan called us and asked us if we wanted to meet for Mexican food. Did we ever?!

It took us about 45 minutes to get there as we had walked quite far away, but the quesadilla was totally worth it.

After that, I had to convert more money and Lisa discovered that her money had mysteriously multiplied- I was jealous.

Then we headed over to Buda Castle. On our way we stopped for coffee because we were pretty tired (or at least I was). We had been walking/ standing for basically 6 hours, so when we reached the hill we took the tramy (/funicular) thing to the top for 800 Ft = $4 each. It was totally worth it.

We admired the most beautiful, epic parliament in the world. FACT not opinion. 

I am a bad photographer

That’s when viola man attacked.

VM: *is suspiciously eager* I take picture for you.

Us: Err, no thank you.

VM: Here, I take camera and take picture of you.

Us: No, thanks

VM: It be very nice. Pretty view. Largest parliament in the world.

Us: No, we’re good. Thanks

VM: Okay, you hold my viola and I take funny picture. *shoves viola at us*

Us: No, thank you

VM: It will be really funny!

Us: NO, I think we are okay.

VM: AMERICAN IDIOTE. *undecipherable yelling* You don’t even know what No, thank you means!

Us: *OMG, we made crazy man angry*

VM: *walks away to find next victim*

It took us like 15 minutes to recover.

Everything was beautiful. We admired and talked of wubbles and got more coffee.

Then we tried to get over to the hill to see “the sky worshipper.” We asked some threatening looking police officers. Unfortunately, their directions required us to walk through a gate in front of which stood scary viola man. DUN DUN DUN.

We waited for Viola man to be distracted by harassing others, and we ran for it. Seriously.

The directions turned out not to go where we wanted to go. So we walked down the hill via the sketchy path.

Once we reached the bottom, we sat on a wall above the street and talked. Every once in a while the cars would slow down as if they expected us to jump down.

Eventually, our feet stopped actively hating us and we walked to the other hill and climbed the badly lit path in the dark. As we got closer to the top, I tried to remember the four steps of self defense on the off chance we got attacked.

Step 1: Figure out what’s going on/ get in fighting stance

Step 2: Blow smoke, ie distract attacker by making loud noises or causing physical injury.

Step 3: get out

Step 4: run away/ prepare for a second attack

Only I couldn’t remember all of them then, so we probably would have been screwed if we had been attacked. *solemn nod*

Really my experience in Budapest can be summed up in one word: beautiful.

We walked down a different badly lit path with aching feet and empty stomachs. So we found a restraint in which to spend some time. We settled on an Italian place, and Lisa had pizza while I ordered of the Hungarian menu – ordering a meal of paprika chicken with dumplings. I was a little nervous because my whole life I’d thought I hated dumplings based on a vague early childhood memory. It’s weird how you can live by decisions you made more than a decade ago and NEVER question them. I liked the dumplings.

By this time it was getting late, and we were both exhausted (or at least I was). In one day we had managed to see all the main sites of Budapest. My flight left at 6 am the next morning, and my taxi was coming at around 2 am. Therefore, I had vaguely planed on staying up all night to enjoy the city and the company. Additionally we had vague plans of meeting up with Tristan and Reka again.

In the meantime, Lisa and I went back to the hostel and played Every Word on my kindle (by this time, we were getting pretty decent).

We decided that we wouldn’t meet up, after all. The commute was kind of ridiculous, and AWAY from the airport for them. So at 11:30, I decided to give up the staying up all night plan.

Lisa and I said a tearful goodbye and an eager desire for it to be time to go to Istanbul together. And then I went to sleep for a meager 2 hours.

At the airport my suitcase was completely unpacked by the security guy. I kept thinking he would stop, but then he’d keep going. I stood there and thought “Seriously?  You better repack that” – he didn’t.

So I know what you are thinking- you’re on your flight now in this story, how could possibly have more to say You have no idea.

So you know how leg room is a problem on REGULAR airlines? Try flying budget. Furthermore, try flying budget with a total douche canoe sitting in front of you. I think we have established that by this time I was VERY TIRED, therefore I was attempting to sleep on my tray table. Even at the beginning of the flight, it was necessary to lie sort of diagonally – unfortunately this guy was determined to make it WORSE. Every ten minutes or so he would recline his chair MORE to my significant displeasure. The more he leaned back, the more diagonally I had to lie which resulted in me falling off the tray every time I fell asleep. By the end, folding over had become completely impossible and I had added another person to my list of people I will murder if all else fails and decide to pursue the rewarding career of serial killer.

Then we arrived in England. As we got off our plane they had all male persons show their passport and walked by a military person with a scary looking gun. Then we had to go through passport control which had the longest line I have waited in at an airport on these trips by FAR. Luckily, in this case, being a non-EU member worked to our advantage, and we got to cut everyone. MU HA HA.

TAKE THAT EU- AMERICA PWNS YOU ALL.

Then we had to walk back into the airport to check in, which was annoying. Only when we got there the guy was like: “Dude, here in England we tots don’t even pretend that we don’t do racial profiling. You are both white Americans, you didn’t have to come here to show your passports.” Only he sounded more british.

We pooled our money (my pounds and euros, and Tristan’s euros) and got starbucks for breakfast.

On our next flight, we once again had lamesauce people in front of us. This time they were climbing on the seat and leering out the window (I’m not sure if it is actually possible to “leer out a window,” but that is the best way to describe this guy’s behavior). They were both in their thirties, AT LEAST, and were the type of people you’d expect to see sleeping at the train station.

This is unlikely to mean anything to anyone else, but this hilarious conversation ensued:

Tristan: You know how there are supposedly less than 6 degrees of separation between every person. There are way less than 6 degrees of separation between these people and Nix.

Me: I bet they slept at the train station with someone who is friends with Nix.

Laugh, it would be hilarious if you knew what we were talking about.

Then: FRANCE

Much to my immense displeasure the zombies (my host family- I occasionally use this term, thanks to some wonderful advice from Devyn). Didn’t go on their Sunday excursion because of the rain L . And I had to wait for 30 minutes for my “short-cut” bus, because it was Sunday.

And it basically hasn’t stopped raining.

OMG BURITOS- or in which I visit Berlin

I was starving to death when I wrote this, that probably explains the title of this post and the amount of times it mentions food.

I left my Edinburgh hostel four hours or so before my flight, mostly because I didn’t want to leave and then come back, because that just seemed silly. Because I am an addict, I made my first order of business returning to the Starbucks I had visited the day before for peppermint mocha, num num. (side bar: something is making a weird clicking noise, and it’s very distracting). The nifty thing about this Edinburgh Starbucks is the pricing. At the one I went to in Paris (there are none in Bordeaux :( ), the pricing is redonc. That is, if a tall peppermint mocha costs like $4 in the us, than it costs 4 euro there. Which is totally stupid because 4 euro is like $5.80. At this one Edinburgh, the price was more like 2.40 pounds which is something like $4. (side bar: word grammar is really irritating. I SPEAK ENGLISH BETTER THAN YOU COMPUTER.)

Anyway, then I failed at finding my bus stop a lot, and had a ten minute conversation with this Scottish man. And by conversation, I mean he talked a lot and I could only understand like 10% of the things he said, and so I mostly just made agreement sounds based on tone. “OH NO!”, “Really?!”, “Wow!”.  It’s important to be enthusiastic, lest the other person realize you don’t have the slightest idea what they’re saying despite the fact that you both supposedly speak the same language fluently. Occasionally, he would ask a question that seemed like it might require an actual response, in which case I would have to say “what?” at least 5 times before getting the gist of the question. Finally, I escaped his clutches, found my bus, and paid 2 pounds to ride it the airport (remember this for comparison with the NEXT time I take an airport bus).
Then some general travelly stuff happened. And I ate a prepackaged panini that they heated up for me, which was surprisingly good for being overpriced prepackaged food. OMG I’M STARVING. Then I sat on the plane for a bit and had Ryan Air try to sell me stuff to make up for the fact that I only paid like 15 euro for a ticket, and then I landed and Ryan Air played their unbelievably corny “we arrive on time!” sound effect. YAY, budget airlines.

I exchanged my remaining pounds for euros on my way out of the airport, and I’m pretty sure that I got totally ripped off.

Then I met Lisa, bought a tram pass of some girl for a 6 euro reduction, and then went places.

She showed me her university, and this nifty memorial for all the books that were burned in its library, and most importantly DOLORES. Dolores is amazing. Dolores is my hero. Dolores is a California style burrito place that serves burritos that taste like they are supposed to- like joy in a tortilla. And I had a burrito which was amazing. AMAZING.

I also met Lisa’s roommate, who is very nice, but who had a minor medical emergency that was completely harmless except that it resulted in her having a very unpleasant evening at the hospital, which wasn’t completely harmless.

Lisa and I went back to her apartment which is on the fifth floor and has no elevator, and I dropped off my stuff.

Then guess where we went…McDo. And we had mcflurries which were cheaper than the French ones, but also less amazing. Then we watched some Dr. Who, because it’s awesome.

The next day after Lisa got back from class she took me to Kreutz burger which has authentic curly fries which they serve with not so authentic mysterious white substance that is possibly sour cream, and then she took me on a tour of parks in her neighborhood. Starting with this one which is in a graveyard:

Graveyard

park

(you know what Microsoft Word? Your FACE is a fragment. And no, I’m not going to capitalize you- just to SPITE you.)

In other news, it is possible that typing snarky notes to a computer program may be a first sign of insanity.

Anyway, it’s most definitely fair to say that German parks pwn American ones, and that American parents need to chill out on the whole “OMG THIS WILL KILL MY CHILD” thing and realize how amazing these contraptions are.

SERIOUSLY FUN STUFF.

Then we went back to the apartment, after a quick stop at the grocery store. Then we did some stuff, I think. And then we made pizza, actually mostly Lisa made pizza, and I sat around and laughed at her. I am GOOD friend who performs irreplaceable moral support activities.

The pizza was fantastic though. OMG, starving.

The next day, Lisa didn’t have class, so I she took me to see all the Berlin touristy things:

Straddling the Berlin wall, or where it was at least

For being a bunch of rectangular blocks the Holocaust memorial was surprisingly effective and moving.

The bunker in which Hitler killed himself was located under this parking lot. You wouldn't know...

This is the space ship of love = representing America it pretty much sums up the Global Stone project (which has a stone thing for each of the 5 continents 5 because German people are apparently unaware that there are actually 7). The male viewer is supposed to use his imagination a specific date to connect these rocks with their sister rocks in their continent of origin, thereby envisioning peace. OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT ...)

Then we ate amazing burritos at Dolores before going home for a nap (because it was cold and rainy and we were tired) after which “we would do more stuff”. (I want a burrito, SO BAD.) Only we didn’t actually do stuff because we were lazy and sleepy. Unless by *stuff* you mean watch Dr.Who, make yummy hamburgers, and invent mixed drinks (The Friendly Chipmunk: 1 part red orange vodka, 1 part Orangina).

The day we ate one final time at Dolores, and I attended a class with Lisa. I slept through most of it. Also, I drew an ALOT of German Confusion.

Then we did some more touristy things in the rain:

Check point Charlie

Giant ball of stuff (supposedly representing that which an immigrant brings and wishes to bring). The truth according to Lisa, Kathy, and Delilah is that it was originally designed for Toon Town but was rejected because, WTF?

pretty nifty art on the longest stretch of the Berlin wall that remains

Fantastic quesadillas were had for dinner. Our plane left 2pm the next day, so we left the apartment at 10 ish, and stopped for bagels. I got a coffee. And a “california bagel” which was like a Chinese chicken salad in a bagel, because that’s what they do in California, OBVIOUSLY. It was pretty tasty though.

Word objects to the “like” in the last sentence. Please stop being prejudiced against my California dialect, Word.
For more pictures go here

Guess what’s fantastic… Money

Because of my early bedtime and the falling back I was awake at 7 and out of bed by 7:45 and out of the hostel before 9.

The early morning was crisp, quiet, and beautiful. I hiked up to the Scottish memorial to admire the view and the strange structures there. It turns out that this project, built during the 1820s to honor victims of the Napoleonic Wars, is considered to be folly because it appears that the over ambitious project was never completed because of budget problems.

The view from up there was gorgeous and the early morning lighting was perfect.

Then I came down and stumbled upon this really awesome Giraffe sculpture. I really liked the poem encircling them and how the little giraffe gazes at the larger.

I took a picture for a couple and they took one for me in return. Then the woman asked to take a picture with me. So I did….

Then I did some shopping and bought some of the least intelligent things to buy when you are travelling light and 4 plane rides left before home, 7 if you count the ones to return to San Diego. But I’ve wanted galoshes for forever and I’m all about practical souvenirs. And also that tea shop was filled with AWESOME and inexpensive.

This is one of the best purchases I've ever made. It started raining as soon as I got back to Bordeaux and it basically hasn't stopped

I would like you take a moment to ponder if I would go to Edinburgh without visiting “the birthplace of Harry Potter”… if you guessed “no”, you win.

Also, they didn’t give me any napkins. How am I supposed to rags to riches without napkins on which to write my first novel? If I never make it big, I will always hold you responsible, Elephant House.

Then I went to Edinburgh Castle and admired it and the view from outside, because I wasn’t about to pay 13 pounds to go in.

Then I walked down the hill, vaguely searching for the soldier’s dog cemetery I had heard about. But I didn’t ever find it.

Instead I found this graveyard in which the inventor of logarithms is supposedly buried. I couldn’t find his tomb stone. I can only assume this is because they were lying to me.

Then I made an awesome, yet somewhat offensive discovery:

This is a sculpture of Buddy, the beloved vagabond dog of San Diego. He was a gift from San Diego, as Edinburgh also has a beloved vagabond dog. I am offended because no one told me

For more pictures go here

Once upon a time, I went to St. Emilion

Last Saturday (/a really long time ago, like 3 weeksish), I got to pretend that I’m one of the poor souls who lives 40 minutes away from the university, and got up at the awful early hour of 7 am. But unlike them, I did this to go to the train station, which I suppose beats going to the DEFLE. Because of this, for the first time since moving here, I ate breakfast with my host family, kind of. Honestly, I was beginning to suspect that they ate breakfast in the middle of the night, because all evidence of their breakfast eating (except two cold pieces of toast) has vanished by the time I go upstairs, no matter when I get up. My train left at “10ish” and the train station is about 1hr away by tram, and I hadn’t bought my ticket, and needed to go to an atm. Everything went smoothly, including a perfect of amount of time to get money from the atm before the next tram at my transfer, except it turned out that the train didn’t leave until 10:40, which isn’t really the same as “10ish”. I would blame Tristan for this, but really it’s my fault for always relying on him to know when things are. Also, he showed up way too early too, so I wasn’t waiting alone. At 10:40 all six of us were sitting on the train, and 45 minutes later we arrived in St. Emilion.

We started off the trip by eating at creperie, that had a beautiful patio that over looked the bottom part of St. Emilion. I had a crepe with jambon et fromage, and a delicious dessert crepe with mint chocolate filling, whipped cream, and mint chocolate chip ice cream.

St. Emilion, like most places around here, is famous for its wine production, but it is also home to the largest monolithic (For those of you who don’t speak Latin or know random architectural terms, monolithic means “one stone” or something like that- that is, this church is carved out of the mountain) church in Europe. St. Emilion supposedly was capable of healing people and performing other miracles, and it was his fame that led him to go to St. Emilion, where he hoped to live a more quiet life. He was buried in the catacombs at St. Emilion and rich people paid to be buried close to him. During the war between the protestants and catholics, however, his remains were thrown into a river. The catacombs at this church were reserved for those who were “pure” that is those who had never lived (still born babies), those who were important members of the church, and those who were rich enough. The church itself was dug out from the top down; it is believed to be modeled after monolithic churches that its builder saw during the crusades. Drainage pipes were dug underneath the church to prevent structural instability due to wet soil. These pipes worked fantastically until they were destroyed when rich people wanted to be buried right underneath the church. Over the years the water seeped into the stone, and today the churches pillars are held together by metal clamps, while scientists work on a way to restore the strength of the stone. Once a year they hold mass in this church, and this actually took place the weekend before we visited.

The last paragraph was brought to you by the 4 euro I paid to tour St. Emilion’s cave, the catacombs, and the church. These historical sites are privately owned, and therefore they cannot be toured independently. I don’t have any pictures of this, because the private owners are selfish jerks who want to be able to make as much money off of this stuff by selling pictures of it, or something like that. (rereading this post it comes off as very anti- wealthy people, huh…)

monolithic churches are more impressive from the inside

Later we visited a winery, and the caves in which they age their wine underneath it. The most fascinating part of this visit was the amazing silence of the caverns. If you were in one of the far corners and no one was walking around you the air was completely still – perfect silence. The winery offered free wine tasting, but they told us to come back in an hour, most of this time we spent at these ruins:

We sat on the wall surrounding the vineyard, and set a camera on self timer across the street in order to get a picture of all of us:

Between the wild black berry picking, long walks and picnics, and the lack of easily accessible internet access my life is becoming increasingly like a Jane Austen novel.

Last Friday I moved to my new home, it’s located in Pessac, about a ten minute walk from my old building, and the area of the university where I will be taking my classes. Though it’s a bit far from downtown Bordeaux, I’ve decided I prefer this set up to living in the city and having a 50 minute commute before morning classes. There are two parks within a couple blocks of the house, one of them quite large. On the other side of the smaller of the parks is Pessac town center, which boasts, among other things, a train station, a movie theatre (with free WiFi, which is cool, if a bit nonsensical), and a Carrefour (a grocery store chain). It’s also about 8 minutes away from the nearest, most practical tram stop, which makes getting downtown only a matter of sitting (or standing, as has become more common recently, do to the inexplicable Bordeaux population boom i.e. everyone came back from vacation) on the tram for 25 minutes or so. So all in all, it’s a fairly convenient location. The house itself it is pretty cute, it’s a split level kind of thing, with a bonus second floor. My room and bathroom are right at the entrance, the next kind of level features the laundry room, office, living room, dining room, and eat-in kitchen, the final kind of level has the master bedroom. The second floor has another bedroom, bathroom, and a game room. They have an awesome dog named Cali, and their/(my?) neighbor has a horse. There is nothing more foreign than hearing a horse whinny while eating your breakfast of corn flakes and non-refrigerated milk.

Yes folks, that IS a toilet seat. Obviously my bathroom is quite the luxury suite :)
Though, admittedly, the water pressure leaves quite a lot to be desired

You can't see anything in this picture? That's the POINT. Isn't it glorious? They have these fantastic thing in france called "le voile" or something like that, it's like outdoor blinds, and this is the effect they have. This photo was taken, by the way, at 8:30 am. Granted it was raining this day, but I promise that when I woke at 10 am the day before (which was sunny) I could hardly believe it was that late and still this dark

These, as we call them, "bomb shelter blinds" can also double as a full length mirror when you turn on the light

This is a picture they have of Cali in their kitchen. Their last exchange student was also from San Diego, so she's with a sign that says: San Diego Si Vous Plait

This is a statue in the smaller of the two parks

And this is the park

On Sunday, my family took me back to the Bay of Arcachon (where the oyster place, the big pile of sand, and beach are located) in order to walk and picnic. It’s my understanding that they do something like this every Sunday. Their youngest son (21) came down from wherever he goes to school and joined us for the day. Up until this point I understood more or less everything my host family said, however, the conversations of the three of them were considerably more difficult to follow. I ended up tuning out for most of the ride there, because I’m not so interested in apartments in Paris as to try to follow their conversation. Cali came with us and she seemed to really love running about. We walked on a trail along the side of the bay (this bay has an incredibly large tide, that is, the water goes WAY out, so we were pretty far from the water most of the time). Looking across the bay, though, feels very similar to looking across mission bay from the Sea World parking lot. Then we picnicked in a nice field, under some trees. My host mothers cooking is fantastic, and her meals are always multiple courses. This picnic began with rice/vegetable dish with tomatoes (have I mentioned that tomatoes are all super fantastic here?), palm shoots (the family held a little conference to determine the English word for what we were eating because I didn’t know the French one, it was hilarious), and maybe something else. Then we ate something that was kind of like a pizza, but with a sweeter crust, and possibly egg, I have no idea what it was, but it was pretty decent. Then we had cheese, meat, and bread. Then these things that kind of looked like miny rice cakes, but were the texture of cheese, I think. We finished the picnic with a delicious desert of grilled chocolate and peach sandwiches. They were delicious. All the meals we eat here are like this, although dessert is usually yogurt (I usually take their homemade (!) plain yogurt, with apple & some foreign fruit stuff in it. It’s pretty fantastic, and the homemade yogurt is more creamy and less sour than regular plain yogurt). On the way back, we had some trouble getting back to the trail, but we ended up finding it. And we stopped along the way to pick wild black berries (!), which my host mother later made into jam. They were incredibly sweet. All in all, we were out picnicking for 6 hours, and when we got back my host mother had crepes with sugar and or honey prepared for a snack. Their son begged is mother for some of his favorite jams and “comptes”, and teased is mother about being short (which I thought was a bit funny, as I’m a bit taller than he is), and then he headed back out. It was quite a pleasant day.

And I’ve managed to do fairly well with the internet issue. Kindles make awesome email writing devices. :)