Bordeaux & Arcachon, France

With the closing ceremonies (huge rager) of the Meras Olympics behind us, we left our mountain abode for the not so big city of Toulouse. The plan was to spend one night and one day here before catching an afternoon train to Bordeaux.

Our adoptive French family, the Mabilles, generously invited us to stay at their other house in Toulouse for our last night there before heading out, so we took them up on their offer for one more awesome night of great food and conversation. Comparisons, consternations, and cliches about the USA and France took up the bulk of the conversation.  It was fun hearing their perspectives on their own governmental system and culture, and sharing our thoughts on our own.

Meet the Mabilles!

Pascal quit his job at Motorola about 10 years ago to start a non-profit called Connected Schools that provides technical vocational video training (in their own language) to children in developing countries in the hopes of giving them 1) marketable skills and 2) enough knowledge so they can effectively teach others. Sounds like a really neat project, and they are in the process of expanding (just wrapped up Cambodia).

Brigette, the mom, is a super woman. She gardens (we were constantly eating out of her garden), she welds (welded the fence around their pool), she is a skilled carpenter (built a lot of the furniture in their house), she's a teacher (teaches a technology class to middle schoolers), runs the hydroelectricity turbine at her mom's house, and raised 4 children. She's like the French Jenna! Her productivity, knowledge, and attitude were truly mind blowing.

The kids we met were Gabrielle and his awesome girlfriend Justine, Martin (organizer of the Meras Olympics), and Sophie (just back from a year abroad in Brazil). They were all kind, funny, intelligent, and incredibly fun to be around.

Our now daily ritual. Coffee and some sort of delicious baked good. This one is a crispy almond cookie shell formed into a cavern of delectable diabetes. 

Bordeaux is sometimes referred to as "little Paris" because of it's similarities in architecture. Similar building regulations must exist, because the only buildings in the city center above 4-5 stories are the churches. 

It also has the good ol' rags to riches tale. According to a travel book we read, and later confirmed by our new frisbee friend Cyril, a decade ago Bordeaux was a run down industrial city with one industry to its name (can you guess?). A savvy politician stepped in as mayor and, in what is considered by every French person we talked to an unprecedented era of political productivity, he literally cleaned up Bordeaux. The beautiful white stone buildings were covered in black from years of pollution, so they white washed them. They installed a passenger tram system, public parks, bike baths, art installations, and water features along the Garonne River where there were previously abandoned warehouses and defunct train tracks. They built a fancy new bridge to connect the two sides of the river, and encouraged tourism. 

Cool statue in front of the Opera house. 

This entire statue depicting scenes from Bordeaux life was made of wine corks!! Bravo crafty drunk artisans, bravo! 

Cool water/mist pad next to the river that a million kids were reveling in. 

The Bordeaux Cathedral was built in the 1440s in typical Gothic style of the age. There was an organ concert going on when we went it, which was really interesting. Also, half of the church was not cleaned, and it was visibly black and grungy, so it wasn't hard to imagine how dirty the whole city of Bordeaux would have looked a decade ago. 

Tower (Tour Pey-Berland) of the impressive Bordeaux Cathedral. Interesting side note: the tower was built separately from the church so the vibrations from the bell didn't damage the church structure. Ironically enough, that wouldn't present an actual concern for a long time since after they built the tower they had no money to buy the bells. It wasn't until the 1880s that the bell was finally installed in the tower. 

Sweet French flag pic along a typical Bordeaux side street. 

Archanon, France

Our last full day in Bordeaux we decided (on the recommendation of our amazing hosts Jackie and Bryn...more about them below) to head out 60 km to a beachside town called Archanon, famous for having the largest sand dune in Europe, the Dune du Pilat. Jackie and Bryn let us borrow their bikes, so we rode the train out and biked to the Dune. Archanon was an absolutely gorgeous little town. 

The dune rises out of nowhere and is surrounded by a forest. The dune measures 360 ft. in height, 500 meters wide, and 1.6 miles long. We walked the whole thing and were pretty wrecked by the end of it. 

Sore calves. 

Mike on the sand dune!

Moooore sand dune, with the forest in the background. Obviously we thought this place was pretty cool. 

After the sand dunes, our awesome Canadian Ultimate-playing hosts Jackie and Bryn hooked us up with the local team. So we went out to practice with Cyril and the Bordeaux team! Polar opposite fields from Seville, which were a concrete dirt patch with not a blade of grass that they paid a small fortune fot. These fields were plush, expansive, and totally free! Cyril and the Bordeaux team were super welcoming and we're looking forward to seeing some of them at WUCC in Italy in a few weeks. Post practice beers are a tradition that I'm sad we got away from in Austin, but we'd be drinking a lot of beer with the amount we practice. 

Also, Bryn has a really interesting post-doc physics position which involves parabolic flight (zero-g), so here is a video of him throwing a disc in zero-g. Definitely wins the award for coolest throwing session!