Bordeaux dans la nuit

It rained non-stop from Sunday to Wednesday last week, and finally, we get some sunshine today. I’d never seen so much rain in my entire life before. Non-stop is almost literal. In those four days, there were little breaks of sunshine that always made me think that the rain had ended. But no. As if the rain was playing a trick on me, it came right back 20 seconds after I started rejoicing. Sometimes it didn’t even wait for the sun to retreat, and the rain would come pouring down without warning. I was rather frustrated.

I really dislike rain, by the way. When the rain turned into hail on the day that I had to travel 40 minutes to a meeting (and how convenient was it that all the trams in the downtown area were out of service due to rain and thunder, which made me 40 minutes late), I was more than slightly ticked off. What made it worse was the violent wind that accompanied the rain as if it was a bodyguard. Got an umbrella? The wind ripped it apart in an instant, and my two-week old shield was forced to retire after a short life.

As a result of the persistent rain, I hadn’t been exploring this week, except for last Sunday night, when I was out near Quinconces during a short period of time that was free of rain. I took a few quick photos, because Bordeaux is beautiful at night.

This was actually taken almost two weeks ago, on the day when I went to the Blaye/Bourg wine tasting tour. It was the last night of the “foire”, something like a carnival or a fair. The column on the left is the Colonne des Girondins, featured several weeks earlier, accompanied by the giant Ferris wheel that was present at the fair.

Grand Théâtre at night, glowing brightly in the dark. It looks rather majestic.

Cours de l’Intendance, where I waited for the tram which took forever to come on a Sunday night. Apparently this is the “luxury” street of the city where you can find all sorts of brand names and expensive stuff. Also, Christmas decorations and lights seemed to be hung. Now we only wait for December to come, and I can already imagine how much more illuminated the city will become!

Buildings near the Place de la Comédie, beside the Grand Théâtre.

A church near a friend’s house. I was unexpectedly invited to dinner at his house on Sunday with some other friends, and he prepared such awesome and yummy Chinese food! Such warm taste of home ^_^

The Regent Grand Hotel of Bordeaux, apparently the best (or one of the best) hotel in Bordeaux. You are welcomed to stay here during your trip, if you ever decide to visit me 😀

Random building on the other side of the street.

The chocolate store! Too bad it was closed as it was approximately 22:30, but the displays were very colourful and super adorable! Everything on display was made in chocolate, so I’m sure my dear LS-san would love this place. Surprisingly the price of each of these chocolate statues isn’t as ridiculous as I had expected…

Guess I should stop showing these in case my “impôt de chocolat” increases exponentially the next time I see LS-san…:P

Not much else to say this week. Life is smooth sailin’ in good ol’ France, where the strike is dying down and holidays are plenty. November 11th was a holiday for Armistice, or Remembrance Day in North America. Since it fell on a Thursday this year, a lot of people also take Friday off. This is a common practice in France known as “pont” (literally “bridge”), and it works the same if a public holiday falls on a Tuesday, in which case Monday is usually taken off. I didn’t take advantage of the pont this time around, but it seems like the French are definitely not lacking long weekends. Pretty much unless a holiday falls on a Wednesday, you’d get at least a 3 day weekend. Sweet, but it promotes such laziness. Annie must not fall behind in the land of leisure and relaxation >_>

For wine this week, I did not acquire real wine. Instead, I got some “crème framboise” which is basically some sort of alcohol with an added strawberry flavour. In terms of cheese, the product of choice this week is Edam, “made” backwards and almost “Adam”.

The drink was horrible. I am never getting it or anything similar to it again. Starting next week I am going back to real wine and I will actually get the bigger bottles this time because after the wine tasting trip, I am convinced that there is GOOD wine. As for the cheese, it looks like a gigantic slice of apple in its packaged form, doesn’t it? Edam is a hard cheese similar to Gouda, and that might have to do with it being produced in the Netherlands, which is the same as Gouda. I ate Edam with soft baguette this week and it may be one of the best things I’ve eaten in France so far, not sure if that’s great or sad. Bread plus cheese, it turns out, work wonders, as long as you don’t wait till the bread becomes rock solid. That also means I would have to go buy bread almost every other day, if I choose to follow that route. Not so convenient at the moment…

Anyway, next week’s cheese shall be Mimolette jeune, and I will have to pick out (or play eenie-meenie-miney-moe) a wine on Monday. It is raining again today and I certainly hope it doesn’t last the entire week. Exploration must continue!