seis

note to self: always book a hostel. train stations, unlike airports, close as soon as the last train has pulled in.

aside from the first 8 hours, bordeaux was a lot more fun than i expected it to be. after getting kicked out of the gare st jean, we tried to pool our money and just get a room in a hotel. every single one in the centreville of bordeaux was booked. eventually we wandered over to the fashion district and slept (sort of?) in the alcove of a window display with the store mannequin's watching over us. it was wayyyy too cold. sleeping out in the streets is something you do once in your life, and NEVER again. around 7am, we checked into our hostel and napped in a real bed for about an hour.

around 9am we wandered over to the office de tourisme and signed up for a wine tasting. we tasted 4 wines. since we weren't able to sleep the night before, we were all a little buzzed by the end of it. one thing that was nice about bordeaux was that the restaurants were much cheaper! we had a three-course lunch for only 13 euros. later on we headed out to bar du rock (or something that sounds equally lame) which was near the medical school for bordeaux university. the only reason i know this is that a group of about ten guys conga-ed into the bar tied together by their white lab coats and chanting some slurred french songs. it was ridiculous!

the next day we rented bikes and rode around the public gardens and the river. they have this really cool fountain. i think it was called mirroir d'eau or something close to that. you could walk on top of it, since it only filled up with about 2 inches of water, and then every so often the fountain would make clouds and clouds of mist. the weather was probably 70 degrees that day too, so it was nice to get some sun!

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for your amusement:
i bought my passe navigo (metro card) for october yesterday. it's sort of expensive (but since i use the metro often enough, it pays itself off) so i wanted to make sure that it worked right after i bought it. i tried to swipe it through the turnstyle expecting to go through but was greeted with a flashing red x. frustrated, i went back in line and tried to explain myself in french to the attendant. she told me "ahh, oui. il marche a mercredi, le premier de octobre." of course my card didn't work yet, it was only september 28.

also: copy and paste to see pictures: http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2284167&l=e6cc7&id=3624618