SNOW- okay, it might be slightly in convenient, or TBC is trying to ruin my life

One morning I woke up to this- I was thrilled

(This was mostly written right after that day it snowed, which was like erm, more 2 4 weeks ago)

Last night, I did what I do every night – after dinner I head into Bordeaux and hang out with Tristan at MacDo (the internet was broken though, it was tragic).

Anyway, at around 11:45, I was going to head back home. As we approached the tram stop I noticed something was off. Then I could read “service terminé” (I don’t need to translate, do I?). So my first reaction is to be like: did I lose track of time and miss the last tram? But that didn’t make any sense because it was Thursday and the last tram leaves the terminus at 1 am. And the sign stated quite clearly that it was 11:48 or so. Then it switches and shows an announcement, which we eventually translated as saying “the tram service is stopped after 10 pm because snow is predicted”).

This made (and makes) no sense for two reasons:

1)      There was NO snow; it had mostly melted away during the day.

2)      It had snowed that morning, quite a lot, actually, and the tram was running THEN.

So Tristan and I stood there in utter bafflement. (Tristan lives by this stop, so this only REALLY affected me- but he isn’t a jerk so he didn’t ditch me).

I’m not sure why, but we stood there for like 10 minutes. I think we were certain that there must have been some mistake. In fact, the tram was still running in the opposite direction.

Finally, I was like okay, this sucks, but there is also a bus that goes to Pessac (and that is actually faster) (I discovered this bus when I was stupid and missed the last tram- even though I knew when it was leaving). So we walk to the bus stop. When we arrive, a totally random man sitting there tells us that the bus service was also stopped. So now I’m all: great, I’m stranded in Bordeaux.

We went back to the tram as if we expected something to have changed. And I spent my time exclaiming “THIS MAKES NO SENSE. THERE IS NO SNOW!” etc.

In fact, I’m pretty sure this is why this happened.

Three TBC workers are sitting in the break room eating lunch. One is on his I-phone.

TBC 1: You know what sucks?

TBC 2: What?

TBC 1: Working. 30 hr weeks are too hard. I think we need to work less.

TBC 2: I agree work sucks.

TBC 1 & TBC 2: *pout*

TBC 3: Hey guys, it might snow tonight!

TBC 1: SO? It does that sometimes.

TBC 3: No, you don’t understand

TBC 2: DUDE, it’s not that complicated: white stuff falls from the sky. Happens every winter.

TBC 3: YES! I know- you see, snow is DANGEROUS. Especially for public transit.

TBC 2: No it’s not, STUPID.

TBC 3: You don’t get it- There is NO way we could keep providing public transit. It’s too dangerous.

TBC 1: Oooh!

TBC 2: I still don’t get it…

TBC 3: Let’s take the night off

All: YES

Anyway, I stood at the tram for a bit, waiting in vain and considered my options

a)      Walk for an hour and a half by myself after midnight in just above freezing weather.

b)      Attempt to procure a bike (the TBC has a nifty thing called Vcub where you can take a bike from one station to any other), however, this is likely to fail because it requires a European credit card- which I don’t have.

c)      Nick Johnson it (ie party it up until the trams start running again at 5 am)

d)     Call host family (hahaha NO)

e)      Take a taxi

Taking a taxi seemed like the best option, so we walked off in search of a taxi. We found a taxi stand, and I was lucky enough to share a ride with some others headed to Pessac, so I only had to pay 6 euro instead of 18, yay. Our cab driver was bit of a jerk though: “this isn’t a bus”. So I got off with the others, and walked the rest of the way (a bit farther than usual, but not much), and just as I turned on to my street the predicted snow began to fall softly.

…

Then, as a going away present, the TBC went on strike for my last two days in Bordeaux (canceling almost everything, particularly anything that could be useful to me). They probably did this to spite me for laughing at their earlier strike (“I have to wait 10 minutes instead of  6? OH NOES”). Therefore I had to take an actual train to get into Bordeaux, which was annoying, but not awful because I totally didn’t pay for it (they owe me—remember the 40 extra I shelled out because you wouldn’t print out my ticket, SNCF? I want it back). Then on Sunday, they canceled the one tram that was still running (the one Tristan was using to get to the train station), but it was kind of a legitimate cancelage, what with everything being icy and dangerous to WALK on. So I ended up walking halfish way to Tristan’s house, and then back to the train station with him.

THANKS FOR NOTHING ,TBC.

I’m going to miss you :( I love(d) that tram.

SPOILER ALERT: Spectuloos does not equal Peanut Butter

Wednesday, I walked all the way the home from downtown Bordeaux, despite the fact that there is perfectly good public transportation. I have no rational excuse for this. It was decidedly irrational behavior, though it started out slightly rational. After standing for about 5 minutes at the Musee d’Aquitaine tram stop, I was getting a bit impatient. This isn’t one of the nicest stops; it’s a bit dirty and some people around me were smoking (smoking, in general, by the way, is less prevalent and less bothersome than I expected). I wasn’t feeling super fantastic as I’ve had a bit of a rhume (cold) the last couple of days, and suddenly I wanted to be home immediately and began dreading the long tram ride (if you call 20 minutes long, sometimes it feels that way, other times it goes by in a flash. In any case it was sounding pretty long about then).  So I looked at the sign which told me the tram wouldn’t be to the stop for 4 more minutes. I looked down the street and decided I certainly had enough time to walk to the next stop before the tram would get there, so I did. I easily beat the tram to Victoire, the next stop, but when I saw the crowd waiting for the tram and shortly after, how packed the tram was, I decided to keep walking.
I reasoned that I would walk to Simply (a super marker whose slogan is “Be Happy, Be Simply”- that’s not a translation. Side note: Simply has some hilarious ads for itself in the windows, having customers say things like “I can shop here without being embarrassed!” (in french). I must be missing some sort of subtly or the necessary culture background, because I can’t imagine why anyone would be embarrassed to go to any super market.). Anyway, Simply is a fairly decent walk from Victoire, and about 3 stops off campus (there are 3 more stops on campus, before mine). But I thought a walk would be nice, as I hadn’t done anything all day excepting eating, sleeping, and enjoying the “authentic” designer UCLA shirt/ sweatshirts being sold at a store in Bordeaux (for more 40 euro and 90 euro respectively, and I thought the UCLA store was expensive), and I didn’t have anything else to do. Besides the tram would likely be less crowded by the time that it got to that stop, and I was going to go to Simply anyway to continue my quest for peanut butter which I had begun the day before.

I was thrilled to find that Simply did sell peanut butter, the only trouble was that it was tiny, tiny, tiny jar of Skippy and cost 3.75 euro. There was something that COULD have been peanut butter next to it, but I wasn’t sure. I decided to continue on to Casino (another grocery chain, and one I hadn’t been to yet) which I believed to be located one tram stop down, which OBVIOUSLY wasn’t worth the wait for the tram.
It turned out to be two stops down, but I walked anyway. I found that they didn’t have anything that was DEFINITELY peanut butter, but they had the stuff that was next to the peanut butter at Simply. It looked like it could be peanut butter, and it came in crunchy and smooth. So, what else could it be? I was slightly uncertain, because there weren’t any peanuts on the jar, instead there was a picture of a shortbready kind of cookie, and the story of its invention written on the back didn’t seem to be correct. But peanut butter goes awesome on cookies, and maybe they wanted to frenchicize the story of invention. Besides, I really WANTED it to be peanut butter, and who was I to say that Spectuloos does not equal peanut butter? So I bought the jar (and two bananas, so I could make the peanut butter & banana sandwich I craved) on hope alone. After buying these things (which was a bit of a fiasco, because how was I supposed to know that I was supposed to weigh and print out a price tag for the bananas?), I opened the jar of what I was then certain was peanut butter. I found it to be the consistency of peanut butter, and was already beginning to celebrate victory when – umm, that’s not peanut butter, or else it’s really odd peanut butter. In fact, it tastes quite a lot like the cookies pictured on the front. I feel disappointed and disenchanted. I wonder what anyone would want with a substance that is the consistency of peanut butter, but that tastes like these cookie things. (If anyone has any suggestions, let me know, as I know am the proud owner of a jar of Spectuloos.)

I put it back in my bag and continued to the tram stop. As I approached I considered walking the rest of the way, but I dismissed that as a crazy idea. But when I arrived and saw that it would be 12 minutes before the next tram arrived, I decided to keep walking to the next top, because it would be unbelievably ridiculous to walk this far because of a 4 minute wait, only to wait longer than that. And this logic carried me almost all the way home, and the belief that it would be ridiculous to take the tram at this point carried me the rest of the way. 

It was actually quite a pleasant way to spend the afternoon, and it was interesting to see the areas of Bordeaux which have been to me tram-over places at a slower pace.
Also, I finally took a picture of something I’ve been meaning to capture since the beginning: 

This is one of the university restaurants, I don't know why it's shaped like a boat.

If it made sense, it wouldn’t be French, and other stories

Last Thursday, I went to the post office to mail in paper work in order to begin the process of completing my visa. This required me to mail in an OFII form (which requires a permanent french address), copies of my passport, visa, and stamp from entering the country to the immigration office; one week after receiving my paperwork, they will notify me that they received it, and one month after that I will be given a doctor’s appointment and be forced to pay 55 euro or some ridiculous sum for a “stamp”, until then I am prisoner to france, because if I leave they won’t let me back into the country unless I get a special visa from “the proper authorities”. This is annoying and pointless for many reasons:
1) What is the point of examining the health of a person 2 months after they entered your country? They’ve had plenty of time to spread around all their nasty foreign diseases.
2) I’ve already paid money for my visa, TWICE. 75$ for the completely pointless “Campus France”, and 55$ for what I believed at the time to be my visa.
3) Why shouldn’t I be able to leave the country in the mean time, isn’t the point of a visa that it gives you the right to BE in a country, not the right to leave it? How does this make sense?
4) I don’t actually have a fourth reason, but the first 3 were good.
This event and many others led to the now quite popular slogan, “If it made sense it wouldn’t be French”.

Why is everything closed on Sunday, despite the fact that most people have weekends off and might want to use that time to buy stuff, otherwise amuse themselves?
Why print stamps on envelopes? Wait, that actually kind of makes sense- BUT- Why should you have to fill out a mailing label form to mail a letter a certain kind of way, but still have to write the address of the envelope?
Why should one have to wait in line to procure said envelope and form, and again when one has filled them out?
What do the following have to do with each other: the erosion of beaches, the evolution of whales, feel good times in Madagascar (i.e. journaliste holds newborn baby, dances with children), and searching for a Mexican island that may have disappeared or maybe just never existed at all?