Happy Thanksgiving! We’ve heard about the amazing weather and fall colours in Ottawa. According to our neighbours, the warm weather has produced a bumper crop of grubs that are eating their way through our backyard. Apparently, they’re sufficiently fattened to provide a nice Thanksgiving dinner for the skunks and racoons that have now done the fall rototilling for us. Not that the grass actually needed that!
We’ve been in Bordeaux since Friday. It’s completely different from Toulouse. The “look” is much more what we’re accustomed to at home – many of the same stores, as well as large groceries stores instead of small, independent speciality shops. Despite lots of meandering, I’m still on a quest for olives. We’ll try the market tomorrow. Here you see fitness clubs, and joggers out along the river, something we didn’t see in Toulouse.
There’s a carnival going on too, just like the ones at home.
We walked around it last night. I tried to get Daniel to go on the Ferris wheel that’s in the background of this picture, but no luck – it was toooooo big.
As in Toulouse, there are lots of people cycling everywhere, women in skirts and heels, no helmets, with parcels bulging from the handle bars and often texting as they weave in and out of traffic. And the traffic! Today, while sitting having coffee, we watched traffic police, on foot, chase down cars and give them tickets. They’d blow a whistle, run after the car and tap on the hood or back window, and the drivers would obligingly pull over. The first “victim” argued with them the entire time we were having our coffee. Lots of theatrics between him and two cops, meanwhile a couple of other officers continued, blowing their whistles, running after cars, and in the 45 minutes that we were there at least 5 others got tickets. That should give you an idea of the number of exciting things we’ve found to do here. We’re also really really happy we decided against renting a car.
This evening our studio apartment resembles a bizarre. I mastered the hotel washing machine, but something seems to have gone terribly wrong with the dryer and anything heaver than camisoles is now draped over lamps, chairs or hanging from cupboards in the hope that it will be dry by the time we want to wear it tomorrow.
Yesterday we had a great time at a flea market. It was outside one of the big churches here, held while Sunday mass was going on! And I’m pretty sure there were far more people outside than in the Church.
Here’s a picture taken at the restaurant we went to just across the road from the market. One of the patrons was trying to tell Daniel to smile, but we didn’t understand … and when we finally did get it, well this is how the picture turned out:
Here’s the lunch that I had at the same restaurant (missing the wine, coffee and warm grape pie that came with it). We can’t get over how friendly people are. They interact - in restaurants, even just in passing – it doesn’t matter if they’re the business owner or another customer, people chat with you. Much of the time I have no idea what they’re saying, but eventually we figure enough of it out. 
For example – all that I knew about the dish below was that it had serrano ham. I wasn’t disappointed.
And finally, here are a couple of pictures of windows from the Church. There are some very old windows that have been repaired and restored over the years and then some equally beautiful “modern” ones installed in 1963. Somehow, it works.
One of these days I’ll have to write about the dogs! Everyone has dogs here. The healthiest one seem to belong to the drifters – they have the most amazing mixed breeds. In Bordeaux, cats seem to have been added to the mix, but dogs still prevail.
Good night everyone! We’re doing a vineyard tour Wednesday morning (yep we’ll be sipping first thing), so I’ll post some more after that.
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