Home Away From Home - Bordeaux

The flight from Dublin to Bordeaux only lasted two hours, but let me tell you... it was one of the longest two hours of my life. First of all, this guy woke me up so that he and his wife could move seats. Rude. Then, there were these rowdy children who wouldn't shut up even after being told both in English and French. Did they need to be told in Spanish? Tagalog? Russian? Not cool. Oh, and because I slept through beverage service, I had to pay 2 Euros for my Sprite. Rip-off. But alas, I survived and finally made it to Bordeaux!

So touristy. #noshame

After a brief 20-minute taxi ride (their cars are freakin' small), Adena and I arrived at our new place. We were under the impression that we would be living in our own apartment, but we were in for a pleasant surprise. We were actually assigned to live in a homestay with Madame Leonard, or as she prefers to be called, Véronique. It works out though because her house is ballin' (pics to come later – I haven't taken many yet). It turns out that we have other company: her 27-year-old son and her fat black cat, Fiji.

My new roommate: Fiji.

Madame even made us dinner, and we toasted (with red wine, of course – duh, it's Bordeaux) to good times for the next five to six months. She actually gave us a lot of food; the pasta and steak was more than enough. Apparently, she drinks at least a glass of wine per day, so I'm assuming that habit will rub off on us.

I could get used to this.

After dinner, we chatted with Madame about our lives back home – basic intro stuff, you know – and we watched the news. She asked us who this singer was on TV, and when we turned to the screen, we saw none other than Miley Cyrus grinding up on Robin Thicke and rubbing a foam finger against her crotch. Yupp. She's invaded even our French home. Speaking of our French home, here it is, or at least the front door.

New day, new clothes.

I passed out on my bed due to exhaustion. I could barely hold a conversation with my family when I finally got to call them. 

The next morning, I set my alarm for 8 am but didn't actually get out of bed until 9:30. Already running late, Adena and I discovered that the French don't really eat breakfast. We each had une biscotte and green tea, which is probably why I'm starving right now. On our way to the store, we discovered that the bank was only 5 minutes away from our place. (THANK GOD.) There's also a Domino's Pizza, if we get really lazy and don't want to cook for ourselves. Everything's pretty much walking distance, minus the university and downtown, but at least everything's trammable. We decided to check out the closest supermarket.

A hipster picture of train tracks, as seen atop a bridge. #nofilter

We didn't buy that much, just the basics: eggs (apparently, the French don't eat them – bad for your cholesterol, says Madame), cereal, milk, bread, and cheese. We couldn't wait to eat the bread, so we snacked on it on the way home.

12 Euros worth of groceries.

We're actually meeting up with our friend from French class, Sarah, so we'll probably take a ton more pictures later. But for now, here are a couple more.

Waiting for a tram.

Public transportation here is top-notch. Coming from LA, I can fully appreciate a good transit system, and Bordeaux has it. This is how I'm going to get to school every day.

Which bottle of wine do we want to buy? #FirstWorldProblems #FrenchWorldProblems

We had the same issue with cheese. We ultimately decided on the type of cheese (brie) that didn't have too much left. We figured that it'd be good since people are actually buying it.

We still haven't eaten lunch. We might go back to the store and buy more bread and cheese, maybe a bottle of wine (if we could actually decide which kind we want). But for now, I leave you with my new motto, and no, it's not YOLO (although that's pretty relevant to me).

"Work less."

Believe me. I plan to.