Toussaint travels, a delayed summary

I am annoyed with myself that I am just now getting to write about my travels over a week after I’ve returned. First, I am not going to describe what I did as well as I would have been able to immediately afterward. Second, I don’t like simply listing events. With that disclaimer out of the way, here’s my much-delayed summary of my Toussaint travels.

I left Saturday afternoon from Montluçon for Bordeaux. I had planned to use the train ride to read a French book I borrowed from the library, but I was exhausted from the night before, so after approximately two sentences, I fell asleep. The woman next to me had been pretty chatty when I first got on the train and, when I awoke briefly at one stop, she struck up a conversation about this particular author. After a couple minutes’ conversation, she asked if she could read the book for a little while. By the time we reached Bordeaux, she read the whole novel!

I arrived in Bordeaux around 9 pm and I needed to get into the city center to find a hotel. The roads outside the train station were confusing and I couldn’t tell which way I needed to go, let alone which road was Cours de la Marne. I asked a couple people who didn’t know, and another guy who answered me in English – “I don’t know.” I really wanted to say, “Look, Monsieur, if I know any phrase in French, I certainly would recognize je ne sais pas!” I don’t like when I speak French to someone and they respond in English! I can do that in Ohio.

After asking a hotel doorman (why didn’t I think of him in the first place?) I was on my way to the city center. Like any town, the area near the train station is sketchy, so I had to walk past several sex shops advertising various products and services feeling uncomfortable but not unsafe.

It was about two miles to my hotel of choice, but they didn’t have any rooms available at their branch so they sent me to another hotel where I was able to get a single room…in another building. It was a long day and I fell asleep almost immediately when I got in bed.

Sunday I woke up feeling much more energetic. I ran about four miles which helped me to get my bearings in town. I walked to the Cathédrale Saint-André and took pictures from the outside, since they were holding mass inside. I also checked out the Tour Pey-Berland, a free-standing bell tower next to the cathedral. The sky was bright blue with wispy clouds, and when I stood next to the tower and looked up, the movement of the clouds made the tower seem as if it were beginning to tip over.

I headed toward the Garonne River next, which was muddy and frankly not all that pretty, though there was a good view of the Bordeaux skyline. I came upon the Marché Dominical des Chartrons, a street market where I bought some oranges and the others there shopped for everything from oysters to new wine to rotisserie chickens.

It’s difficult to travel on a Sunday because nearly everything is closed, but fortunately the Musée d’art contemporain was open. They even accepted my student ID so I got in free. I was overwhelmed by the museum because the building is quite large, the map they gave me was unclear, and not all of the rooms are used for exhibitions, but I managed to find some really striking pieces. I should mention that I really dislike classic art (especially El Greco, right Dad?) and I love the stuff that’s really abstract and even debatable as to whether it is considered art. My favorite at this museum was Sans titre (Untitled) by Céleste Boursier-Mougenot. It consisted of two inflatable swimming pools with various sized bowls and a few wineglasses floating in the water. A motor in each of the pools created a circular flow of the water and the bowls and glasses collided at irregular intervals to sound various tones based on their sizes. It was hypnotic to watch and to listen.

Later I wandered toward Saint-Louis church where I unexpectedly found a street market and festival. I really enjoy even fruit and vegetable street markets, but I could spend hours looking at all the antiques, jewelry, books, and such they had at this market. If there is anything I like more than a market, however, it is street musicians, which could be heard from a block away. It was a huge group of young people with flutes, guitars, trumpets, a drum set and an electronic megaphone. They played their instruments, danced, sang, and shouted to a growing crowd. I was hooked until they packed up and dispersed.

On the way back to my hotel for the evening I passed through the Esplanade des Quinconces and a large carnival. I didn’t play any games or ride any rides but it was fun to watch kids go into the haunted house and play on the bumper cars.

Monday I woke up early and ran six miles around town before I checked out of my hotel and into a cheaper one. I made a trip to the train station to get a ticket to La Rochelle for Tuesday morning and then took some time to go to Zara and H&M. When I lived in Spain, I really almost lived at Zara because their clothes fit me so well and the prices are decent, so I was disappointed not to be able to find anything that day.

After lunch, I walked to the Palais Gallien, the ruins of a Roman amphitheater from the 3rd century. As I took a few pictures four young people arrived and I overheard them speaking English. I asked them where they were from and we discovered that three of them were teaching assistants like me from near Metz. (The other guy, Jian, was Irish looking for work as a chef in Bordeaux; they had all met at the youth hostel.) Steph was from Texas, but even funnier was that Jeff and Alex had both recently graduated from Calvin College and MSU! They were nice enough to let me tag along with them to the Cathédrale Saint-André and then out to dinner. French restaurants don’t open for dinner until around 7 pm so we had some time to kill and, being in Bordeaux, it was only natural that we should pick up a bottle of wine before the stores closed for the evening. Alex and I stopped in a wine store, but the prices were steep and they didn’t have any bottle openers available, so we realized Monoprix, a chain supermarket was the only option. It was about a mile away from the plaza where we’d been hanging out, but Jeff and I powerwalked and managed to find a bottle opener and some Bordeaux before closing time.

We had dinner at a little Asian restaurant with decent prices, good food, and excellent conversation. After dinner we used my new bottle opener to uncork the bottle of Bordeaux and split it five ways on the street on the way to an Irish bar. Although the karaoke background tunes were excruciating we had a good time playing cards and talking before everyone walked me back to my hotel around 12:30. We exchanged email addresses, phone numbers, and goodbyes before I tried the door and found it locked. I didn’t have the code for the keypad so the only options were either to sneak into the youth hostel with the others or somehow get the attention of the hotel proprietor and convince them to let me in. Fortunately, Steph had a copy of the guidebook I used and it had the hotel phone number. If you’ve ever tried to learn a foreign language, you’ll know that talking on the phone is one of the most difficult things to do. The couple drinks I had had worked in my favor, and I wasn’t nervous at all as convinced the proprietor in French to give me the code.

The next morning I caught a train to La Rochelle, which had one of the nicest train stations I’ve ever seen. Because La Rochelle is right on the Atlantic Coast, a lot of French families travel there for vacation, so the prices are higher, but I managed to find a cute room in a hotel above a bar where the proprietor’s wife encouraged me to take as many showers as I wanted and for as long as I wanted. Maybe I smelled bad, but I was more than receptive to her encouragement. On that first day in La Rochelle I visited the Cathédrale Saint-Louis, walked around the harbor to see the old towers protecting the city, and saw the Hotel de Ville, which was right around the corner from my hotel.

Wednesday morning I woke up early and went for a run with the goal reaching the beach at Les Minimes on the southern edge of town. I spent a few minutes walking around on the sand before heading back north and around town a little bit before finishing about nine miles. The weather that morning was perfect for running and in the afternoon it warmed up perfectly and I took my supermarket-bought lunch down to the beach for a picnic.

After lunch I tried to visit the maritime museum, but it was closed. I decided the aquarium was too expensive, and I really just enjoyed walking around the harbor, so I spent the afternoon doing just that. I visited Monoprix again to pick up dinner supplies and again took my towel to the beach to picnic. There were many people there and as the sun set over the ocean it was almost as if the sloping sand was stadium seating and we were watching a great performance.

Thursday I caught a train to Nantes where I immediately made a fool of myself at my chosen hotel, thinking it was locked when I should have been pulling the door instead of pushing. Of course, there was a bus stop right there to witness this scene.

Once I figured out how to open the door and deposited my bag, I met up with my mom’s co-worker’s son Johnny who is studying abroad in Nantes. No, I had never met him before, but I went out with him and some of his friends to a little café. It was really fun to hear about their study abroad experiences which reminded me of my experience in Spain as well as what I’ve already experienced in France. Johnny went home to eat with his host family, but Molly and Meredith were nice enough to let me tag along on a shopping trip to Zara and H&M and then to an excellent crêperie for dinner. They invited me to go out with them that evening, but I was starting to get sick so it was a better idea for me to get some rest.

The next day in Nantes I was still not feeling well, so I sort of unenthusiastically saw the sights: the Cathédrale Saint-Pierre, the Chateau des Ducs de Bretagne (although it was being renovated so I couldn’t go inside), the Ile Feydeau (a neighborhood), and the Passage Pomeroy (a historic shopping arcade). It was bittersweet to realize that I was tired of traveling and ready to go back to my new home in Montluçon.

Unfortunately there were no direct trains from Nantes to Montluçon, so I was forced to change trains twice. After a disaster in Berlin where I tried to catch a commuter train to the airport and wound up in Hamburg, I have been very nervous about taking the correct train so this trip was a bit stressful for me. I managed to catch the first train (at 7 am, how awful!) and make the two switched without incident, aside from a marriage proposal from a random man in the Vierzon train station.