Bordeaux

First, about Bordeaux…

This was the view from the ship.



I went for a bit of a wander (perhaps a Kiwi phrase) with a few fellow officers. We walked up the streets of Bordeaux and enjoyed the shear ambiance of narrow cobbled streets, lined by three or four story high stone buildings with shuttered windows and flower boxes, the occasional bicyclist with fresh produce in a front mounted basket wizzing by.

Simply turning a corner would yield a spectacular site.



This, by the way, is comparably a very wide street. The rails are for the trams which not only look like they should be in Disneyland (see the view from the ship) but make the exact same noise as the Disneyland train.

The people were very nice and quite willing to speak with us in English, contrary to everything I have heard of the French.

The Canadian, Kiwi, German and I ate in a lovely café for dinner where I found myself in a very bizarre conversation I never thought in a million years I would have. As officers, we began discussing and comparing out steward(esse)s.

I have a stewardess. My second so far. She is wonderful and cheerful and bends over backwards to do anything I need. She has been working on ships since 1998 and even met her husband, of three years, on board. They both now work on my ship.

Ironically, we, my fellow officers and I, all admitted to cleaning before our stewards come lest they talk to other stewards and word gets out we are messy. (God forbid.)

Anyway, back to Bordeaux. The nice thing about our ship is, when you need to get stumbling home, it is easy to find.

I put this in its own link, for better viewing. Click here.


You just turn down a street and, there it is. The ship! (The ship is dead center in that picture.)

The next morning I picked up on a few more things.

The city smells like chocolate croissants, which is entirely accurate, cause there were chocolate croissants everywhere. There is nothing so charming as walking down an ridiculously narrow lane (or half lane) smelling baked pastries, in France.

In America, the kids experiment and dye their hair unnatural colors. In France, it is 50 year old women. Bright punk rock pink seemed most popular, followed by neon blue. Usually this flare was done in streaks. I suppose if you are going to cover up the gray you might as well do it with pizzazz.

French people are wafer thin in general. My only theory is you must get sick of smelling chocolate croissants all the time.

And then there was the guy riding his bike with an according on his back.



I don’t know why I took this picture, after all bike riding accordion players are so common where I am from.

I have to be up in three hours…

More later.