Bordeaux

Wow, I had no idea France had shunned the Qwerty keyboard format - this will make typing very slow... I got up before sunrise on Thursday to travel to Toulouse. The unheated minibus wound its way down the snowy side of the Pyrenees as the sun came up behind the mountains. It was three hours to Toulouse. I walked around a bit, bought a croissant, and then hopped a two-hour train to Bordeaux. I guess I was expecting some quaint little village surrounded by vineyards but Bordeaux is a fully fledged city, just big enough to be depressing in the way that all cities can be... As I was walking into town from the train station a huge protest march was forming - a union thing as far as I could tell, but there were tens of thousands of people streaming down one of the main streets flying flags and singing protest songs through loud-halers, sounding romantic as anything does in French... That night I went to a restaurant and had veal escalope with a couple of glasses of Bordeaux blanc. The veal was like a big succulent pound of white baby's flesh. Mmm. Yesterday I traversed the city on foot. Everyone has been lovely. The women all flirt politely, and everyone's willing to laugh off my complete ignorance of the French language... The comic shops are huge and it's not just spotty fat guys with ponytails who shop in them. Last night I went to see the circus that's currently visiting. I had a second class seat and I sat where the usher told me to. Unfortunately it was right in front of two very excited little kids, such that I think I must have completely blocked their view of the entire circus (I had to laugh later - it was like something out of a French candid camera show). Their dad asked me to move very politely and I was happy to oblige (oui oui!)... so I sat next to some nice British girls toward the back of the tent, near the orchestra pit (yes, French circuses have orchestra pits). The circus was incredible. Their clowns were classic French mime artists. Tigers. Zebras. Camels. Elephants. A troupe of Chinese acrobats. This afternoon I'm going on an organised tour of some local chateaus, so I'm likely to be spending Australia Day quaffing with a bunch of Grey Nomads I guess.