After a mere six weeks back at school little French kiddies are back on holidays and with my Paul off to Pommard in Burgundy with his mother I found myself with a lot of free time on my hands so decided that it was a perfect opportunity to duck down to Bordeaux to visit, Guillaume; my French host brother who stayed with us in Melbourne for a couple of weeks last year, or Squirrel, as we affectionately called him due, rather cruelly perhaps, to the inability of Frenchies to pronounce the word ‘squirrel’. Personally I believe it is that their lips can’t handle the double ‘r’. Anyway, I found some TGV train tickets and before I knew it I found myself one Sunday morning at St Jean Station in Bordeaux.
Guillaume’s maison is in a village called Bouliac, located just outside of Bordeaux with brilliant views overlooking the gorgeous city on the banks of the Garonne river. His place though is a section of the village named ‘Greenfields’, yes, an incredibly Gallic name. We chatted away during the drive home, trying to pick up where we left off and cram in a years work of news. As soon as we arrived home I had just enough time to dump my belongings in his 9 year old sister Marine’s room, which was to serve as my resting place for the stay, we jumped back in the car and headed out with lunch with his whole family. It was a gorgeous little restaurant where the menu was written on chalk boards covering the rustic walls. It was somewhat of a challenge trying to decifer the menu as French dishes have specific names, rather than a description of what it entails, therefore you just need to know the lingo, which unfortunately I didn’t. Luckily Guillaume iphone was handly so he typed in some of the plats into google and handed me the phone to read the translation- duck breast from the Basque Country, ‘slaps forehead’ oh of course, silly me! After a long lunch, including a buffet dessert where we practically ate our way through the little bowl of macaroons we headed for a quick look at the village, though it was rather brief as it had started to drizzle.
The following morning Squirrel and I jumped in the car and went on a little road trip to check out the largest sand dune in Europe on the Bassin d’Arcachon.
Wow, just looked at the time and it is rather late here so I will finish this tomorrow, as well as getting around to finishing Barcelona and Jordan, goodness I am terrible!
