Before I begin reflecting, two things:
1. A bazillion birds (or bats?) were flying around my building this afternoon. It was kind of ridiculous, but also very cool looking.
2. I taped some of the pictures my kids have drawn for me on my wall. On kid, Valentin, drew me a picture of the American flag (kind of). Funny thing is: that one keeps falling off... weird.
So, Toussaint is over! I was traveling for 7 days, which is much longer than you think it is. I'm going to talk about it in 3 parts because we visited 3 major cities, and there's so much to say!
We arrived in Bordeaux around 2:30 on Sunday afternoon with plans (and tickets) to a 3:00 ballet. The thing is, we had to change, then Fabiola's friend who lives in Bordeaux and was taking us to the ballet didn't know her way around the train station, so we arrived at the Grand Théâtre at 3:10. They would not let us in. Apparently, the French are serious about their ballet, and that means no interruptions after the curtain rises.
We walked around found some food, and we went into the ballet during intermission.
Interesting things about the ballet:
They were short(ish) pieces, and I think they were choreographed by different people.
The first piece was Afternoon of the Faun, which I played several years ago on the flute!
It's a really beautiful piece of music, but the choreography was kind of blah and had some bizarre sexual undertones.
The second piece was beautiful: Le Spectre de la Rose, I'm not sure if this translates to Ghost of the Rose or the Rose Ghost. It was a pas de deux, and absolutely beautiful! The male dancer was the rose ghost, and he did some amazing leaping and turning, all while wearing a pink full body unitard thing. He was also the most muscular male ballet dancer that I've ever seen, which is saying a lot. Most male dancers are incredibly muscular; he was more so.
The third piece was Russian and strange.
In addition, the theater itself is gorgeous, and I will post pictures. It was definitely worth the experience.
On Monday, we did an all day wine tour in the town of St. Emilion, which is 30 minutes from Bordeaux. We visited two vineyards, tasted (drank several glasses of) three wines, and had a "country lunch." (If any of my kids from peer power are reading this, I will remind you that alcohol is to be consumed legally and responsibly. We had a bus to drive us around.)
The country lunch included several kinds of ham, a duck paté, sausage, salad, bread, fruit, cheese, and a macaroon. We had two of the vineyard's wines at the table.
I don't know what you know about wines; I don't know much, but the wine we drank was red. In St. Emilion, the reds are usually some combination of Merlot and Cabernet Franc, with some Cabernet Sauvignon. French wines are almost always (maybe always) a combination of a couple grapes.
The wine was good.
We spent the afternoon wandering around the town, which was as quaint as it was supposed to be. I drank a nice cup of coffee in the main square.
On Tuesday, we did a walking tour, kind of. I bought a €1 map that listed the sights, and we kind of followed it. Everyone seemed bored, so we skipped ahead and saw the Cathédrale Saint-André, also beautiful. We packed a lot into two and a half days, so we turned in pretty early to pack on Tuesday.
Bordeaux is essentially a beautiful city. The architecture is all 18th century. It has a kind of decadence to it; it's reservedly baroque. That makes no sense, but you can look at my pictures.
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