Noël and Saint Emilion.

Wow, i'm here again already!

I have had a fantastic, eventful few days... Bordeaux and the sorrounding area has brought out the goods again - they just put so much effort into everything.

On Saturday, Jeanne (the mother in my host family) and I went to the les Marchés de Noël (Christmas Markets) of Bordeaux. Despite the persistant rain and the damn cold it seemed like half of Bordeaux was there... and unsurprisingly, it was beautiful!

I love how much effort the Bordeaux council puts into its city's image. I was already dazzled by the city's natural beauty, its cleanliness, its big, open plazes, its modern transportation... (you get the idea) but for the Marchés de Noël, they went all out. Lights now dangle from every concievable location, Christmas trees adorn the sidewalks and clever lighting highlights the beautiful old buildings.

The bustling Marchés de Noël

Preeetty.

And there is a great atmosphere as you wander through the stalls, smell the sizzling crèpes and sip the vin chaud (hot wine). Although i was tempted (especially by those addictive crèpes!) I refrained from buying anything. I have become the ultimate stinge! haha!
After the markets we just wandered the streets of central Bordeaux - with me stopping every 10 seconds to take a photo - and entering whichever shops looked interesting...

The streets of lights ...

the open plazas ...

And Noël trees everywhere!

As beautiful as it was, we still returned home drenched and freaking freezing!
Later the night, however, i ventured back out into the rain to meet the NZer Ross from the alliance course and his friend, Rebecca (another Kiwi). We booked a table for 10pm at a lively Spanish bar the Bodega Bodega. It was another really fun night - we ordered a whole lot of different desserts and a forgotten amount of cheap pitchers of wine. The atmosphere was infectious and we were soon out of our chairs shouting with the loud, dense crowd especially after seemingly random trumpet calls. We were particularly amused by a table of girls next to us who had even more empty pitchers of wine!

As it approached 2am however, we left and followed the trail of people to a few more bars. By this point, however, we were more interested in the people around us and after getting into a lively discussion about Flight of the Conchords, we began to ask people if they knew the show. We had a little format going. We'd approach some random people, and one of us would ask in accented french Connaissez-vous l'émission Flight of the Conchords? (Do you know the show flight of the conchords) and they would look at us blankly and so we'd launch into a rendition of one of their songs - prodiminantly, it's business, it's business tiiiiime!! We thought that we'd found a kindred spirit when a girl replied 'oooooh, flight of the conchords?' and we were like YES, but then she replied 'oh no.'
Our eventual failure was so much more bitter after thinking we'd hit success.
This time i got home without a hitch and the door was much more responsive. I did find out however, on my arrival at home that i had lost the french SIM card that i had bought earlier that day so that i could recieve calls without paying and send cheaper SMS (I was very proud of myself - talked to a random french salesperson in french and understood. Yes, a nice moment). Mmmm, clever hey. Better a 10euro sim though then my wallet or something valuable!

I didn't actually drink much on Saturday night and so this morning i woke feeling tired but happy. After a delicious stew for lunch (which is like dinner here) we departed for a village near Bordeaux called Saint Emilion - I realised when we got there that this was the village that the random man was gushing about about last thursday night when he was buying us wine. And the random man wasn't lying, it was beautiful. An old traditional village set against endless fields of grapes!

The Girard Famille (minus stanislas who was playing hockey)

Emilion and I

Ahh, europe!

The Saint Emilion church..

This was the entrance to some wine making area..

The township.

And that's all for now.

Until a few days. It's time for bed.