Dunes, Arches, and Weird Weather

I learned this weekend that Périgueux is not alone in its penchant for strange weather patterns. I’ve found over the last week that a typical day of weather in Périgueux is as follows: it is sunny and then raining and then cloudy and then pouring and then bright sunny and then drizzly and then partly cloudy. You can go through about four or five different types of weather in 30 minutes. It’s definitely a good idea to take your umbrella wherever you go but to also take your sunglasses.

Bordeaux’s weather was very similar to Périgueux’s. Which makes sense, as they’re only an hour and twenty minutes apart by train, but remains annoying all the same.

Katie, another American assistant living in Périgueux, and I took the train to Bordeaux early Saturday morning. (It is really cold and really dark in the mornings in France in October. I’ll be glad when daylight savings starts.) We grabbed a train with a few other assistants from Bordeaux to head to the Dune du Pilat, a massive sand dune on the Atlantic coast of France about an hour west of Bordeaux. The dune was pretty incredible. It seems out of place: before you reach the dune you’re in the middle of a forest and then *bam* you’re on a dune that looks like it’s been transported to France from the Sahara. The side facing the forest is incredibly steep, requiring steps to climb to the top. The views from the top of the dune are incredible. The view of the resort town of Arcahon and the Pilat bay dominates to the north while most of the rest of what you see is the Atlantic and more coastline. It was exhausting to climb up and down the dune – particularly up. After we climbed/stumbled/slid down to the bottom and stuck our feet in the water, we had to climb all the way back up. It’s Monday and my legs are still achey from it. But it was well worth the exercise! I haven’t been getting enough of that lately anyway. It was also worth the eight forms of public transportation Katie and I took that day (train to Bordeaux, tram to hotel to drop off bags, tram back to train station, train to Arcachon, bus to dune, bus back to Arcachon, train back to Bordeaux, tram back to hotel).

Stairs up the steep side of the dune

Forest. Then dune. Then ocean.

Standing at the top - I have so few pictures with people in them! I made Katie take a picture of me at the top.

After checking out the dune we walked around Arcachon, the closest town to the dune, for a bit. It’s clearly a beautiful little resort town in the summer, so it was a little quiet at this time of year, but it was nevertheless interesting to see a new place. There was a cute main street and a pretty walk along the beach and the bay. But, since it’s more of a summer place, there’s not too much more to say about Arcachon.

Pretty summer apartments in Arcachon.

Main shopping area in Arcachon - very cute and most shops were open, but it felt like any beach town, meaning it felt quiet because it's not beach season!

Walking along the beach in Arcachon.

Bordeaux was a big change from Périgueux – it felt so nice to have so many people around, walking, shopping, eating, etc. Not that I ever doubted it, but I’m definitely a city girl – there’s no way I’m moving out to the country. Quiet Périgueux and its 30,000 inhabitants (who apparently must all move underground on Sundays and enforce a strict “no talking” rule) are pretty hard to get used to. Bordeaux also seems to have an absurd amount of arches. They’re all over the place. The city used to be surrounded by a wall, so many of the arches have an excuse since they used to be gates into the city, but I think some of them just got built for the heck of it. I’m going to make an extremely educated guess and say that whenever someone in Bordeaux thought they needed some new form of public art over the past 900 years but they couldn’t think of anything new, they just put another arch up. We mostly just explored and took pictures of buildings on Saturday evening and then ate and drank well for dinner. Sunday the weather was icky and following the aforementioned pattern, so we alternately explored some more and sat in a café/walked around a museum. The buildings in Bordeaux look a lot like the ones in Paris (though not quite as nice), so it has a very “bourgeois” feel to it.

One of the many arches I saw in Bordeaux.

The grosse cloche. That means "big bell," but I prefer the literal translation of "fat bell."

There was a carnival going on close to our hotel. They had a stand called "Mickey Boy" with a picture of Mickey Mouse on it. I don't know if they mis-translated or couldn't get the rights to "Mickey Mouse," but it was funny either way.

Cool old gate tower from 1400s (when the city was walled-in).

Part of the very pretty public gardens!

It was fun to get out and travel a bit. The proprietor at our hotel was friendly and told us that he would only watch our bags during the day because we were American and not English. Old rivalries die hard, I guess. We chatted with him a bit both days, which was good practice since the only other time we were speaking French was in restaurants/cafes.

Now I’m back in Périgueux and starting another week of observing. I still don’t know when exactly I’m going to start teaching small groups because it seems like the teachers are all on different schedules. I think I’ll muddle through this week and talk to all the teachers I’ve been seeing, and then I’ll go and visit the administration at the end of the week and see what they think next week should look like. I’m going to plan some lessons anyway, just to have them ready for when I do actually start teaching. I wrote one about stereotypes to start; it seemed like an easy and entertaining topic to start with. There are only two more weeks of school and then we have a two week break. Apparently this is the first year that this break has been two weeks. As of now, Katie and I are talking about Prague and Milan (cheap flights!) but I’ll have to see where my research takes me - meaning if I see cheaper flights, I may be going somewhere else.