Day 10: Return to Paris for the Louvre and Tour Montparnasse

Our final day in France had finally come as we awoke on that Saturday morning.  We packed our bags and said au revoir to Biarritz.  With our bags stuffed into our car, we drove to the train station and dropped off the rental car around 7:30 am to catch the train at 8 am.  The train ride was again 5 hours but pretty much everyone fell asleep for the duration of it because no one likes getting up that early in our family. Upon arrival, we were able to check into the same Hotel Innova that we had before and were able to score an awesome room that had a perfect view of the Eiffel Tower from the window.  Luckily, that window also had a fire escape that acted as a balcony so we had some fun taking pictures on it.

Our balcony outside our hotel room, pretty nice eh?

The Turgeon family, albeit exhausted, felt no shame in seeking one last adventure in Paris.  Our destination: the Museѐ du Louvre.  Basically, it’s a huge museum of tons of different art.  The collection ranged from many famous Greek sculptures and Egyptian sarcophaguses to paintings like the Wedding at Cana and of course, the Mona Lisa.  The place was super packed and filled with many cameras flashing non-stop.  It was pretty cool to see all those famous art selections first hand rather than just seeing pictures of them.  Again, I couldn’t tell you much about the stuff we saw because most of the signs were only in French.  But even if I did read it all, it would be extremely boring to summarize it to you.  At least I can say I went.

Mona Lisa

Venus de Maya

Egyptian artifacts

Inside the Louvre

Another goal of the evening was to eat McDonalds on the Champs Elysees because of the controversy it caused when it was erected and because everyone was pretty tired of French food at this point.  On our way there, we stopped to buy some souvenirs.  The notable one was Nick’s black beret that he continued to wear around Paris for the evening with his tennis shoes and cargo pants.  Probably fit in pretty well, don’t you think?

Once we ordered our food at McDonalds, we sat down and enjoyed our American meal that tasted pretty much the same as the food from home.  Paris had been able to accurately portray how us fat Americans like our food J.  While eating, we met some people from Tennessee there that said they did the boat tour on the river as well as climbed the stairs to the Eiffel Tower that day.  This rekindled our interest in climbing at least to the second level of the tower, even if it cost a few bucks to get up there.  Instead of walking all the way from McDonalds, however, we decided to take the metro instead.

To our dismay, the Eiffel Tower lines were as long as ever and no one really wanted to wait that long to walk up some 700 stairs just to the second level.  They only had like one elevator open and two staircases out of four open.  Just our luck.  Someday, I will return to climb those stairs but I will make sure to make reservations several weeks in advance.   Until then, I will just imagine what it probably was like up there, 325 meters above ground.

When we were about to leave, we realized that there was a few fire trucks and policemen out roping off one area of the tower.  We saw tons of tourists looking up at the tower and pointing at something.  After peering up into the cross beams, we realized that there was a guy on the ledge attempting to commit suicide – we think.  They had sent a rescue team up to him to get him down and everyone was rushing over to see it.  We stayed for a bit to see if he was going to do anything but as of right now I do not know his fate.  It must have been pretty scary to get where he was in the first place, let alone the physical strength it probably required.

After that debacle, the only logical thing was to get to the only thing other than the Eiffel Tower in terms of seeing the city from up high.  Yes, you guessed it, the Tour Montparnasse!  This tower boasts 59 floors extending approximately 690 feet above ground.  It isn’t as tall as the Eiffel Tower but still gives quite a view from the rooftop.  We headed up in the elevator (no stairs this time) and hung out on the very windy rooftop.  It was shielded from most of the wind with glass panels but it still had quite a gust blowing at that altitude.  We could see the Eiffel Tower perfectly as well as all the other monuments across Paris that we had been visiting.  At 11pm, the Eiffel Tower sparkled with white lights!  It was a great end to the day as well as my time in France.

When we all headed back to the room, we got to look out the window at the Eiffel Tower while sitting in our pajamas drinking some red wine and listening to “Champs Elysees”.  One thing was for sure, this trip was definitely worth it.  Getting exposure to France and other cultures in Europe was a priceless experience in addition to all the sightseeing and experiences we had here.  I was really glad I got to share the time with my family in France and hope that I will continue to visit new places down the road – probably after I get some money first.  

Back in the hotel with our cool view of the Eiffel Tower

I’ll write again tomorrow, but it will probably be only a paragraph or two about travelling back unless something out of the ordinary happens.  Let’s cross our fingers that it doesn’t.

Day 11: Au Revoir France, Hello America

Fortunately, nothing out of the ordinary happened on the trip back to America from France.  We woke up at 8 am and had some croissants for breakfast before we embarked upon on trip home.  Our plane left Paris around 12:30pm France-time for our 8 hour flight across 7 time zones.  The only difference was that we were gaining hours this time instead of losing them.  We had to go through seemingly pointless customs in Chicago – pick up our bags from one carousel to put them on another.

Three hours later, we got on our plane to Cleveland from Chicago.  We sat on the runway for about 20 minutes because apparently Airforce One was taking off with President Obama and no one could go near the runway forever.  That was about the only eventful thing that happened.  Again, an awesome trip and I am very glad that I went.  Hope you enjoyed reading about it!

The symbol of Paris

Day 9: Last Day in Biarritz = Huge waves

Way to go Biarritz, should have told us that the party arrives on the weekend.  Of course, the best weather of all came at the end of our trip, giving us ample sun for an awesome beach day in
Biarritz.  On top of that, we were less alienated today because many more English-speaking people had arrived.  We didn’t talk to many of them, but it was still good to know that we weren’t the only ones who didn’t speak French.

Dad, Nick and Lucas left in the morning to go hiking in the Pyrenees Mountains without me due to a miscommunication.  Apparently they thought I had no interest in going hiking with them, so I got to spend a day on the beach with Mom instead.  The difference between today’s beach and yesterday’s beach was simple – the waves were huge today due to high tide. 

Naturally, I seized the challenge of fighting the ferocious undertow with a side of head-slamming waves.  I must have looked ridiculous running out with the boogie board into the ocean, only to be spit back out onto the shore, completely confused as to what had just happened.  I had no idea how the surfers were able to get out as far in the ocean as they did because every time you moved out a few feet, the monstrous waves would throw you back another 10.  All of this fighting the waves with a board was tiring and fruitless so I decided to just ride one wave in and call it a day on the boogie board.  Curse those huge, continuous waves!

Someone surfing the waves that I failed to get past

 Once I put the board down, I headed over to the swimming area which was essentially a big wave pool.  There were lots of people stationed a few feet out from the shore in the water being buffeted by the waves crashing onto the shore.  I ventured farther out since it was pretty shallow.  The waves were just as big as when I was attempting to boogie board only this time I could go underwater and avoid the tug of war between me and the ocean.  At one point, I made it so far out that I was unable to touch the ground anymore, which was fine – I know how to swim J. However, when I tried to return to shore, I couldn’t make any progress.  I tried swimming hard and realized that I was actually getting pulled farther out into the ocean.  I was a little afraid at this point because I was getting tired of swimming so much so I tried to ride some waves with my body.  Luckily I was able to catch a few to move me in to the point where I could touch the ground again.  I felt the tremendous undertow/riptide pulling at my feet again but I had a strong hold in the sand that allowed me to walk back in.  That was the first time that had I had ever been stuck in what seemed to be a “riptide”.

When I returned to Mom, we decided to break for lunch because she wanted to try one of their salads.  I wanted a glass of wine so we went to the same restaurant we went to the first night, the Players Bar/Restaurant.  They gave Mom a huge salad and my wine tasted like grape juice so it was overall a good time.

The beach called us back again to hang out and do the same stuff I was doing before.  Mind you, the water was still ice cold and when I came out of the water, my hands and feet were numb.  The trips into the ocean became shorter and shorter because I had no body heat left to spare.  Of course, while warming up on the beach, I saw plenty of topless women.  Very few were anything you wanted to look at but every once in a while you would see one that wasn’t so bad.  But I digress.

Mom and I returned home about an hour before Dad, Nick and Lucas got back from hiking. We shared each others’ experiences and from what I gathered, I guess I lucked out in being left behind.  They can still say they hiked it, but the experience itself didn’t sound fun.  Probably the biggest fault in their planning was bringing a small bottle of water to split between three guys.  I revise that statement: it was more a lack of planning to bring a small bottle of water for the three of them.

We went back out to the beach at low tide to try and catch more waves (yeah this day never ended apparently).  We pretty much encountered the same struggles as I did before.  There was not enough time between waves to make any progress out into the ocean, so once you were unable to touch the ground, you couldn’t make any more progress.  We saw surfers that were actually getting to go into the “tubular” waves but unfortunately us boogie boarders had no chance.  I realized later that most boogie boarders had fins on so that they could ride waves and also get around easier.  Flippers were a luxury that we did not have.

Brothers sitting out on the beach

 After some more ocean fun, we headed back to shower and change for dinner.  We were able to get out to a restaurant called Arena Café right on the coast.  It was a really fancy restaurant with relatively good prices.  I ordered some sautéed calamari for an appetizer as well as some grilled seafood assortment for dinner.  It was a dinner that was so big that even I was unable to finish all the food.  The waitress was really nice and told me I would like the grilled seafood better than my first choice because the first choice was apparently at the end of the batch of food for the night.  We also ordered wine with our meals in these huge wine glasses.  Halfway through our meal, a huge wind picked up and knocked some table umbrellas over, causing a lot of chaos and forcing us to move inside.  Right about the end of dinner, a lot of people started coming into the bar, ready to start partying in what seemed to be a really nice place.  Too bad we had to get up early the next morning.

I think Biarritz turned into a Miami Beach on the weekend nights because droves of college students started showing up all over the place.  Not that they had to be in college anyways because the drinking age is so low here.  Throughout the whole weekend, no one was ever carded, not even Lucas.  I guess the French just don’t really care about that stuff or at least don’t have problems arising from it. Before I go, here are a few things I was thinking about:

• If I ever go back to a foreign country, I will at least learn some of the language before I go. It is very frustrating seeing so many people your age and being unable to communicate with them.
• Learning to surf in a beach town would probably be a good plan seeing how there were tons of people doing it.  It can’t be that hard, can it?
• I guess it isn’t that weird to go to a topless beach, but I think a completely nude beach might be a little more uncomfortable. Not that I was uncomfortable at a topless one.
• One thing I have learned from this week is that it is probably easier and less stressful to have everything loosely planned out ahead of time rather than completely “going with the flow”

Day 8: Biarritz beach + party

Nice weather had arrived finally in Biarritz, France and we were eager to use it.  Dad and Nick headed out to the Biarritz surfing beach by the casino first around 1pm.  Lucas, Mom, and I followed shortly after.  In our efforts to find them on the beach, we got to do a lot of “exploring” of the beach.  You have to understand that this was the first nice day that we had been at a foreign beach before.  To be blunt, there were a lot of topless women of all kinds.  Most of them were old women, but hey, you see a few younger ones here and there J.

Nick on the beach posing

 Once we found Nick and Dad, we headed into the ice cold Atlantic water in the swimming area.  There were two designated areas for people to be in the water.  The other area was dedicated to surfers and boogie boards to make sure that they had enough room to do their thing.  Upon entering the water, it hit me in three stages: first very cold and uncomfortable, second numbness, third uncontrollable shivering and discomfort from my hands and feet.  I was unable to stay in the water for more than 15 minutes at a time because it was so cold.  However, the waves were pretty big and made for a fun time trying to ride them in through the crowd of people in the water.  I suppose you were supposed to do rotations anyways because no one without a wetsuit stayed in the water very long.

We sat on the beach for a few hours and enjoyed the sun for once since our vacation had been plagued with rain clouds for most of the time.  After moving to the surfing area, we grabbed our boogie boards and tried to catch some waves without hypothermia.  I was able to catch one and ride it all the way to shore from about 40 yards out.  I hopped out of the water promptly after and wrapped myself in a blanket to try and recover from the cold experience.  It was fun to ride, but not fun to be that cold.

The rest of us enjoying the first day of nice weather

 After the beach, we headed back to take a break for a bit since there was supposed to be a party later that night in town.  Mom made several types of ravioli for dinner which tasted fantastic. She used all fresh ingredients from the market.  Everyone pretty much took naps and played games for a bit until we were ready for the party in the town.

Before the party, we headed down to the coast to take some sunset pictures because it was the first chance we had at seeing one on the coast of France since we arrived.  The clouds ruined a little bit of it but overall it was a nice view.  We walked over to the party and basically it was a stretch of several tents hosting bars and restaurants all down the coast.  They had some security gate at the entrance but no checking of IDs or anything.  The cup to drink was €1 and most drinks after that were around €3.  Music was playing and tons of people were gathered along this stone boardwalk party next to the shore.  The biggest issue? No one seemed to speak English, leaving us all a little alienated.

Sunset picture

 Mom and Dad decided to go back early and they gave Nick, Lucas, and I money to spend on drinks and such.  For awhile, we stood around and talked to each other and tried to eavesdrop on others conversations to figure out if we could find anyone who spoke English.  I tried to talk to one group of people because they were singing the lyrics of one of the songs in English.  However, that is a poor indicator of knowing any English – English songs are played in Europe all the time.  We were about ready to call it a night so I headed to the bathroom and heard the phrase, “go piss in the corner!”  It was then I knew I had found someone that spoke our language for once.

I met some guys named James, George and John (I think) that were from England.  I talked to them for a bit with the introduction being “You guys speak English? I have been looking for anyone that speaks my language all night!”  They found it funny because they were pretty much in the same situation.  The group they were with was on a bachelor’s party for one of the members and they were planning on partying in Biarritz for the next 4 days.  Needless to say, we made friends pretty quickly and followed them over to the rest of their group.

The party consisting of a strip of tents with bars and restaurants in each

Day 7: Wine country visit in Bordeaux (St. Emilion)

Wonderful news: we finally got to go to some wineries!  On day 7 of our France vacation we were able to start off by spending some time trying to figure out how we would go about this personal wine tour and any sort of differences between them and the wineries back home.  We decided we would just travel to St. Emilion in the Bordeaux region to find the tourist center and go from there.  The drive was about 2.5 hours from our house so pretty much everyone fell asleep in the car.

After passing through the huge city of Bordeaux, we arrived in the medieval town of St. Emilion about 25 minutes later.  On the way in, we saw vineyard after vineyard covering the surrounding area.  We arrived shortly after the tourist office took a break for lunch so we decided to take a quick look around and grab lunch as well.  Most of the roads through the town were ridiculous and uneven.  If you look at a map, the entire town has roads going every way except where you want to go to. We originally sat down in a restaurant called Le Medieval but left due to time restrictions.  The tourist office was going to reopen in about 30 minutes so we decided to just grab “cheap” ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch.  The bread was very soft and it reminded me of bosco sticks from back home.  One of my favorite lunches thus far!

Once we retrieved a very comprehensive map full of practical information about almost every winery in the area, we set out to find some to visit.  We stopped at 3 in a row that were closed even though the guide book said they were open.  Things looked bleak at this point since we wanted to get in at least two visits before the wineries started closing.  Finally, we arrived at Chateau Canenac, a larger family-owned winery on the south side of St. Emilion that welcomed for our first winery visit in St. Emilion.

The brothers looking at a vineyard

At Chateau Cantenac

 Chateau Cantenac had about 15 hectares of vineyards composed mostly of Merlot with some Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon as well.  The coolest part was that the son of the manager was able to give us a private tour of the entire Chateau, teaching us a lot about the winemaking life.  He spoke ok English, which was a huge plus because the alternative would be listening to someone speak in French and not understanding a word of what they were saying.  It was really cool to see that all the information we talked about in wines class at Cornell were actually true about the areas we were visiting.  Since Saint Emilion is on the right bank of the Gironde, most of the soil in the riverbed is gravel with some clay as well.  Once you get on the hill, the vines grow through limestone.  It is hard to believe that those little plants can cut through solid rock with their roots.  The French guide was all about terroir, the natural elements that go into making grapes as good as they are.  The guide was very passionate about winemaking and you could tell by the way he presented at the information as if it were the first time he had told someone about it.  We got to see a lot of the vineyard, the place they use to make the wine, and also the cellar they use to store and age the wine. If I listed all the information here about what we learned, that would be an essay in itself.  All you have to know is that it was one of my most favorite experiences in France.

French oak barrels used to age the wine

Once the tour was finished, we got to taste their two wines they made on the property, the Chateau Cantenac and the Selection Madame.  Both were very easy to drink and had a lot of soft flavors.  The tastings were done out of small half-bottles of the 2007 vintage year and it was entertaining when our guide stopped drinking with us and said “Alo, but I drink too much” and set his glass down.  He liked his wine so much and really got into talking about each one’s characteristics like he had a hand in every step of the making.  However, towards the end we realized he said “Alo” and “Voila” too much – to the point where Nick and Lucas started saying it to one another jokingly.  We bought a few bottles and a box top with the name of the Chateau on it – getting a signature from our tour guide on the back.  Overall, I would say it was an awesome tour and tasting.  You find that from wineries like this, you can still have a great tasting wine without being a classified growth.  (find out more about Chateau Cantenac at http://www.chateau-cantenac.fr/)

Having a taste of some very good red wine!

 Our guide was nice enough to call some other places that he knew of and schedule another winery visit somewhere close by.  Many of the places were closing around 4pm so no one else was doing tours.  It didn’t look like we were going to get to see any other wineries.  Luckily, he called in a favor from a friend for us to get a tour at Chateau Soutard, a Grand Cru Clasѐ Chateau.  We hurried into the car and I drove up to the place to grab a tour before it got too late in the evening.

Large stainless steel vats for first fermentation

Chateau Soutard was recently bought out by an insurance company from the original family that owned it back in 2006.  Apparently, the vineyard was becoming too costly to maintain for a small family since it was approximately 22 hectares.  However, the company had “attempted” to keep the Chateau as much natural and similar to the old way as financially possible.  However, this vineyard was still pretty modernized in the way of both how the vineyards were cultivated and also the way the wine was made.  They still maintain the high standards for their wine and have high classification standards in France so I don’t think they are just mass producing wine.  Instead of the small oak barrel aging done in the previous vineyard, this property used huge stainless steel vats to do the first fermentation and then transferred to large oak barrels before moving the wine to smaller oak barrels. 

The lady showing us around spoke like 5 languages, including English, and commented that she could tell we were from America but not sure of which part.  She noted that all people from America speak differently and it’s interesting to also realize that in France you can tell when people are from the south vs. the north, similar to the way we have it in America.  The reason she brought this up was because the most frequent visitors to the vineyard are Americans!  Made us feel special.

At the tasting, we got to try 3 of their wines and one of them was supposedly never available for tasting because it was one of their best wines.  An expert wine taster had come in earlier that day to try it and since you can’t open bottles and leave them out for very long, we got to have a taste of it!  The two that we were supposed to taste were the Chateau Cadet-Piola 2006 – Grand Cru Clasѐ and the Chateau Grand Faurie La Rose 2008.  The special one was the Chateau Soutard 2008 – Grand Cru Clasѐ I believe.  They all were top quality wines and I think everyone liked them a lot.  The coolest part was the tasting room had a white light in the table that allowed you to easily look at the color of the wine against a white background instead of looking for a stupid napkin like usual.  These bottles were much more expensive only because of the classified growth status that was on the label which sounds somewhat silly.  Apparently if you meet all the criteria to achieve the higher status wine label, it isn’t necessarily always done even though the extra word on the label automatically commands a higher price.  I assume that there are more restrictions on the process when you get that classified status.

Wines from left to right: Soutard 2008, Grand Faurie La Rose 2008, and Cadet-Piola 2006

Thoroughly satisfied, I realized that my day visiting wineries was coming to a close but also realized that I will have to come back and visit someday. Our tour of 2 out of the hundreds of wineries in Saint Emilion barely scratched the surface of the search for those great valued wines.  Hopefully I will get to do it again soon.

After visiting wineries, we went back to Le Medieval for dinner and had the price stabilized 3-course meal.  I got some fish soup (which was huge and much better than the last time I had it) and pork medallions with cheese for dessert.  Basic meal, but it was good and enjoyable.  The funny part about the meal was that there was some guy driving around the restaurant corner in a car drinking beer and singing loudly to the radio.  Apparently there are no police in Saint Emilion to stop him.  He went around 4 times before he disappeared but when he did come by, everyone at the restaurant had no idea what was going on.

Too many good things happened today for it to end just yet so I will tell you about our drive home.  Basically we started off driving back the way we came and everything was fine until we came to a part in Bordeaux that said the highway was closed and it made us get back on the highway going the opposite direction.  The way Bordeaux works is there is a bypass highway that runs around the entire city.  Thus, we started taking the loop around the other way to get to the exit that we needed to get off at.  We stopped at a gas station for diesel fuel but there was a holdup.  Apparently in France you can take 10 minute breaks whenever you want and refuse to serve anyone at the gas station.  Why? I don’t know.  After we finished waiting for the gas, we got back on the highway and missed a turn to continue around the bypass.  The best part was we didn’t know it at the time.  About 15 minutes later, we realized we were headed north to Paris and thought it was a good idea to get off at the next exit.  The biggest problem with this was that the next exit didn’t let you get back on the highway to go the other direction.  Therefore, we spent about an entire hour travelling around Bordeaux trying to figure out how to get back on the highway.

Once back on the highway, we headed back the same direction that we went before and ran into the same highway closed problem, so we turned around again and went the other direction but this time we were determined that there must be a faster way than going around the entire city again.  We took our own detour and got off at the first exit to ask for directions at a McDonalds.  You have to remember we are in France and people rarely speak good enough English for us to understand directions.  The guy we talked to said we would get way more lost if we tried to find our own way than to just go around the city again.  He advised it was best to turn back and do the whole thing over again.  So we did.

The other great part about the drive back is after we got around the city, a bright flash happened on the highway.  In retrospect, I believe it was a speeding camera even though I was driving maybe 5 or 10 kilometers/hour above the speed limit.  Since they are automatic, I suppose they get you for even 1km/hr over the speed limit.  I will have to wait and see what happens with that speeding ticket.  I am not sure how they would enforce it on Americans in rental cars, especially if we aren’t planning on coming back anytime soon.

Finally, we thought we were done until we found out that the exit for our town, Biarritz, was closed.  Hence, we drove past it, through a toll booth, got off at the next exit, came back and got off the correct exit that was open, and paid the same toll.  Overall, a super fun driving experience that really makes you appreciate American highway systems much more.  Blah, at least that was over.  I think the two experiences of the day sort of counteracted one another into making it an OK day.  At least we made it home safely.

Day 6: San Sebastian visit in Spain

We awoke on Tuesday with our first objective – figure out how we are going to see Bordeaux wineries.  Dad spent a few hours on the phone talking to various tourist offices trying to get an idea of what is the appropriate procedure for doing so.  Since we wanted to see the wineries of Saint Emilion as well as the historic town, we figured it would be a good place to start. What we didn’t know is that most wineries expect you to book ahead of time even if you are a small group.  In other words, you can’t just show up like you do in U.S.A.  So we decided that we would wait and see if our house renter could get back to us with information before making a final decision on which wineries to go to by car or which tour to take if we didn’t use a car.  Ultimately, we decided on nothing and felt that Tuesday was not going to work out for the wine tour idea.

The day for wine turned to a day in San Sebastian (Donostia) to check out the tapas bars and the beach there since it was rainy and crappy at Biarritz.  Our luck with weather thus far had been extremely poor.  I walked outside for 10 minutes and for the first 5 it was sunny.  All of the sudden, it started raining when I thought it was safe. Blah.

The drive in the rental car was all too exciting.  If driving stick shift wasn’t hard enough, include the inability to read any signs and the absence of a GPS.  It wasn’t easy, but Dad got us there in one piece.  Apparently, there are tons of tolls throughout Europe.  It reminded me of driving through New Jersey, only with sheep and mountains instead of suburbs.  We had to cross over the Pyrenees mountain range to get to San Sebastian which actually made for some nice sightseeing along the way.

Once we arrived and parked in a underground parking garage, we headed out to see the town which actually had good weather for once.  I got to practice my limited Spanish to find out some simple information such as “Where are the bathrooms?” and “How much does this cost?”  Again, once people replied, it became more difficult to continue the conversation but I was able to pick up bits and pieces of the responses.  Anyways, I felt much more comfortable here than I did in France where I knew pretty much nothing.

San Sebastian had relatively tall buildings compared to Biarritz with roads arranged in a grid, similar to NYC.  However, those roads were actually walking paths more or less, with the occasional service truck travelling down it.  Some of the roads were bright and happy whereas some felt like they may be a little less friendly at night.  The most important feature of these streets was the number of tapas bars located throughout.   Every street had a handful of tapas bars that all seemed pretty similar.  No bar was very big and the way it worked was that you would get a plate and then pick out as many individual pieces as you want and then show it to the bartender.  He totaled it up (usually each piece was approximately €1.75) and then you paid for it before you ate, kind of like a buffet, but smaller.  Many of the bars had nowhere to sit, just tables to stand at either inside or outside.

We ate at some random tapas restaurant first to start the day off and apparently we ordered too many.  I figured I was hungry so we grabbed a bunch of the little pieces.  Apparently it is more customary to eat a few and move on to a different bar, rather than eat a meal’s worth at one place.  Silly Americans we were!  All I remembered is that the beer wasn’t that good and decided against it at any future bars.  I couldn’t really tell you what we ate because it was extremely random but for the most part it was seafood.  Nick was not pleased at this point since all these towns had seafood all the time and he was ready for something different.  But what can you expect when you are stationed right on the Atlantic coast?

Seafood-based tapas

Dad likes to take lots of pictures

We walked around town some more to get our bearings of the place.   One place we found was a wide open square in the middle of grid of streets called Façade of the Constitution Square.  Originally, it was used for bull fights, or so the map told us.  We also visited Basilica of Saint Mary of the Chorus, a church that had a quirky little guy opening and closing the door for people begging for money in Spanish.  The inside of the church was really fantastic with many ornate sculptures.

After some more visiting of a few other things, we got hungry again so we stopped at a different tapas bar for more appetizer-sized food.  This time we only got a few so that we didn’t feel out of place.  The bartender was pretty kind at this place and we appreciated when he heated up the different pieces we chose to eat.  Again, most of it was seafood-like morsels on bread to get an idea of what we were eating.  While we were eating, the Euro Cup game between Czech Republic and Greece was on and many people were coming in to watch it.  We saw the first two goals scored by Czech Republic within a few minutes of each other so it was pretty exciting while we were there.

The long awaited beach walk began after our second tapas adventure.  The beach had to be a mile and a half long and we walked pretty much the entire thing at low tide.  It was evident that high tide wouldn’t permit us to walk on as much of the beach as we did so we were lucky we got to do it. Our destination? The wind combs!  They had some cool rock structures over by these “combs” that my brothers and I all climbed on, a change from the usual sightseeing.  Basically, the wind combs were engineered into some rock that were designed by and architect who was inspired by a sculptor to put these super heavy pieces of metal embedded in the rock.  More picture opportunities ensued.

The beach of San Sebastian

Wind comb

The sun was beginning to set as we searched for another place to eat dinner at.  This time we ended up choosing a sit-down restaurant that had 3 courses for €15 – much cheaper than other meals we have had thus far.  I had some lame stuffed peppers that had no meat or anything cool in them, just potatoes.  The rest of the family actually got some good value for their money and a young bottle of wine too!  Overall, it was a good experience as our last meal in San Sebastian.  I felt like we got a good idea of what it was like without spending too much time there.  The bar scene would be nice to visit again when I learn some more Spanish.

Some general notes from the day:

·         Everyone was exercise freaks at San Sebastian.  Maybe we were in just the wrong area in France, but everyone in San Sebastian was running to keep in shape.

·         That being said, most of the dress was much more casual here than in France.  Sneakers were OK and more comfortable clothing was worn.  Our waiter at the restaurant thought we were French at first.

·         Also, I barely saw anyone smoking. Good job Spain.

·         Maybe it is a San Sebastian thing, but I noticed a TON of dogs that were well trained – i.e. no leashes.  However, there was a lot of dog crap everywhere

·         Bathrooms were FREE! Take that, Paris.

·         People still go in the water even though its 60 degrees (16 Celsius).  I don’t see how that is fun.

Day 5: Biarritz marketplace and aquarium

Day 5 in Biarritz started off pretty rainy and continued to rain throughout the entire day unfortunately.  Mom made some eggs for breakfast before we headed out with the umbrellas available next to the front door.  A basket of umbrellas should have tipped us off the moment we walked in the house, but oh well.  We had a few things on our agenda for the day: visit the marketplace, rent a car, and see the aquarium.

Umbrellas in hand, we headed over to the fresh foods market where they had everything from slabs of meat to assortments of cheese and wine.  It was really cool to see how huge the place was for such a small town. Everyone in the marketplace was extremely friendly and let us “try before we buy” – the perks of a “farmer’s market” I suppose.  We ended up buying several types of cheese to taste for later, but nothing huge since to cook since we still had many restaurants to try in town.

Fresh fish at the market

One of the best parts of Biarritz is that it’s right on the water, making it a prime fisherman’s town.  We walked into the part of the marketplace dedicated to fresh fish.  I took a few pictures of the place but you can’t get the complete idea without the aromas of fish that come with the visit.  On one table they were serving oysters with wine.  We bought 12 for approximately €1 a piece.  They were slimy, but definitely worth the try.

Oysters!

We took our newfound produce back to the house and sat around for a bit trying to figure out where the tourist center was.  Once we thought we knew where it was, we set out on the classic Turgeon epic that involved many wrong turns and overestimations of distance and space.  We eventually made it to figure out the best place to rent a car for the day which ended up being at the airport.  We sent Dad to pick it up by taking a bus while the other four of us trudged around in the rain looking for food.

After fruitless efforts to find some restaurant that served French onion soup, we settled for a sandwich stand close to the water.  At this point, it was slightly raining, but not that much.  The minute we stepped outside, the rain poured down.  We ran in another building to eat our sandwiches only to find minutes later, Dad was stuck back at the house with the rental car but no key to the garage.  I ran back with the key to help him back into the super tiny garage with his diesel-powered, Toyota stick shift compact car.  Apparently diesel-run and stick shift are the most common kind of car options in France.

Mom trying to coax the baby sea lion to the glass

After the aquarium, Dad got on a picture taking spree again before dinner-hunting.  Usually dinner-hunting involves trying to find the perfect place to eat regardless of how long it takes.  However, we had come out with a list of restaurants with their locations to check out.  We were shocked when 5 of the restaurants on our list were closed for some holiday week it seemed.  Apparently we picked one of the best weeks to vacation where most of the recommended restaurants are closed.  Figures.

When we were about to give up, the last restaurant had a sign on it saying its “sister” restaurant was open when it was closed.  Hence, we went a few doors down to the other restaurant, Le B2, and were pleasantly surprised.  The whole family sat at a bar until our seats were ready and we all got to taste some house sangria.  Once we sat down at the table, we ordered a Pouilly-Fuisse from Louis Jadot in Bordeaux region which was really good!  I had a similar one in wines from Burgundy and that’s how I knew it would be a good choice for dinner.  With dinner, we ordered a Bordeaux Clairet (Rose) wine to go with our meals.  I ordered lamb with green beans and it ended up being the best meal I have had in France yet.  The meat was perfectly done and very juicy.  I enjoyed the meal thoroughly and the rest of the family felt it was the best restaurant we had been to yet!

Pouilly-Fuisse White Wine

My awesome lamb and green beans meal

Finally, we got back to the house and watched “Good Morning Vietnam” starring Robin Williams.  It was pretty entertaining, definitely a good finish to the night.  Bonne nuit!

Day 4: Biarritz beach walking and exploration

Nick and I watched the NBA East Conference Finals between the Miami Heat and the Boston Celtics starting at 2:30am.  We thought it was a good idea at the time to watch the entire game until the Heat ended up beating the Celtics around 5:45am.  At least we can say we watched it.

Unsurprisingly, our day in Biarritz started around 2:00pm in the afternoon due to the fact that everyone was exhausted either because of the long day or simply staying up to watch the NBA finals. First, we spent some time waiting for the house renter to come by to fix the cable since the cable provider spoke no English for us to communicate the issues that the cable box was having.  After all troubleshooting was done, we found out if we had just unplugged the entire system and plugged everything  back in, we probably could have gotten it to work on our own.  That’s technical assistance at its finest.  Oh well. Second, we had breakfast.  Mom had went to the store and bought some croissants and milk before we woke up which was nice. Bon appétit!

The épicerie

We decided to walk around in town for a bit to both a) find the épicerie (grocery store) and b) find lunch.  On Sundays, we realized many stores were closed so it gave us fewer options for eating.  We ended up sitting down for a small tapas bar where we sat and watched some of the French Open between Nadal and Djokovic.  There was a crazy old lady sitting next to us that wore black lipstick and black eye liner with bright blonde hair.  On the other side was some guy who had quite a few to drink at 3 in the afternoon.  Not to mention, no one spoke English at this place so we resorted to our primal means of communication such as pointing at the menu items.  Everything ended up fine, but still an interesting experience.

We headed to the grocery store for Mom to pick up “the essentials”.  Some interesting things to note:

• They had more different kinds of wine available than food in the store
• Milk is served in liter bottles, not gallon jugs
• Most of the fresh produce is not chilled, i.e. the lettuce is simply sitting in a basket, unwashed

After we took the groceries back and relaxed for a while, we headed out down to the beach to walk along the water.  It was extremely windy but not bothersome.  Dad decided to take a million pictures as we walked along the coast.  Most of the coastline was rocky and not very beach-like.  In turn, when we reached the beach section, we found it empty – no one was interested in the beach on a stormy day.

A view of one of Biarritz's beaches

We trudged along through Biarritz to try and find a place to eat for dinner to no avail.  Some of the restaurants that we had planned on trying were closed or too far away.  We ended getting tired of trying to find the perfect French cuisine and settled on a little pizzeria in the tourist district.  We were pleasantly surprised at some of the cool pizza choices they had.  I ordered the Margherita Pizza Pescatoria or “seafood pizza”.  Basically, it was an assortment of clams, mussels, calamari, and cuddle fish on a normal cheese pizza.  We also had a jug of “house wine” from Bordeaux to make up for our Italian meal in a French town.  Ultimately, it was the first meal I felt full at because the calorie level was close to what I was used to back home. We treated ourselves to dessert and my order was something similar to a hot fudge sundae. Looking back on the meal, I couldn’t imagine being an athlete here and expecting to get enough food for the amount you would burn off from working out twice a day.  I suppose you would have more of a entrée + main course + dessert + coffee for your meal to make sure you got enough.  I guess that is why Europeans are so thin.

Pizza!

Finally, we headed home to chill out on the couch and watch some newfound French television.  We couldn’t really understand any of it, but I can see how people would be able to pick up the language if they were here for a longer period of time.  I already start noticing how words are pronounced as well as simple phrases.  If I wanted to write them here I would have to look up how they are spelled since I honestly have no idea.  Nice end to a short but relaxing day.  To finish up, I’ll list a few more things that I noticed today.

• The idea that French people are “snobby” is an inaccurate stereotype as far as I can tell. One guy offered directions to us even though we didn’t ask for them in a very polite manner and no one has been impolite to us yet
• Everyone smokes in France. I’m convinced that stereotype is extremely accurate. For being a “healthy” country, they make up for it in the packs of cigarettes they smoke each day
• Scarves are big. Even guys wear them. I know I said accessories were important before but at this point I am convinced that they are essential to French attire.
• To say hello, many people will do the “air kiss” on one or even both cheeks. Guys do it to other guys too. Handshakes aren’t enough I guess

Day 3: Paris + Train ride to Biarritz

Eiffel Tower with these guys

After a good 10 hours of sleep, the family was able to get up and move like normal people again.  We got somewhat of a late start, but were able to grab a taxi to go to see the Eiffel Tower as soon as we could.  We learned today that it’s and extra €3 for the 4^th person in a taxi and an extra €6 for the 5^th person.  That’s where all those extra fees were coming from…  Anyways, once we got to the Eiffel Tower on a Saturday, we realized we probably weren’t going to make it up in the tower.  We took some tourist pictures a little farther away from the tower and said that was enough for now.  Our new quest: find brunch.

We walked along several Rue de (insert street name here) trying to make our way to the Arc de Triomphe.  We stopped to take a picture at one of my future workplace’s signs, Barclays, which I thought was cool.  We walked down the famous Avenue de Champs-Elysees and decided to eat at George V.  A bottle of Coke was only €6! Mom and Dad got a ham, cheese, and egg sandwich that they really liked whereas I got a simple ham and cheese sandwich.  Again, all of our drinks were served in glass bottles, even the mineral water.  Since it was a more tourist area, we didn’t see as many French people as we did at our first meal out.

Arc de Triomphe with the brothers

 Since our train was set to leave at 2:26 pm, we didn’t have much time to spend sightseeing. We hurried over to see the Arc de Triomphe by walking through an underground tunnel.There was no walking across that traffic circle that surrounded it unless you wanted to get run over. We took a few pictures of that and then spent way too long trying to get a cab to take all 5 of us. We ended up splitting up into two taxis because we didn’t want to be late for our train. Once we arrived back at the hotel, we picked up our bags and walked 4 blocks to the train station which was very similar to the rails in New Jersey. We arrived in plenty of time for our train and had little trouble getting on the 2:26 pm train to Biarritz, France.

The train ride took 5 hours to go from Paris to Biarritz, but we travelled through some interesting areas along the way.  Most of the scenery included farmland and a few small towns.  However, the unique part of the train ride came when we began to ride through Bordeaux and see tons of vineyards.  Who knew that France was covered in that many grapes?  The worst part of the trip was the fact that we were facing backwards the whole time.  The best part of the trip was watching Nick and Dad try to talk French to a guy named Xavier that Nick was sitting to next on the train.  We found out that he loves watching American basketball, especially the San Antonio Spurs.  Too bad they already lost to OKC…  The main takeaway was that Dad couldn’t make sentences as well as he thought and that we needed more batteries for our handheld electronic translator.

Our new home for the week!

When we finally arrived, we got to see one French guy holding up our name on a sign to take us to the house from the train station.  First time for me!  It was €35 to drive 5 minutes to the house. Worth it? The house was a really nice duplex with 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.  The tv setup was lacking severely but we just used it to watch Mission Impossible 2 later that night. 

Once the guy in charge of the house finished showing us around, we headed out to find food close to the beach.  The beach was only a 5 minute walk, but we kept walking around to see as much as we could the first night.  The waves we saw were huge – too bad the temperature was around 55 and deterred us from wanting to do anything in the water.  We finally sat down to eat around 9:00 pm, typical Turgeon dinner time.  I ordered some duck fillet which was very tasty.  We split our first bottle of Bordeaux wine for dinner between the 5 of us. Yes, even Lucas was able to have some because the drinking age is 16. As dinner was finishing up, it started pouring rain so we had to share the 3 umbrellas we had brought to make it back on the dreary night.  However, I still felt like this place was going to be a lot of fun provided the weather lightened up a bit.  Day 3 – finished.

Day 1 + 2: Travelling Fun and Paris!

We¹ embarked upon our tour de France on a Thursday that blended into a Friday at some point over the Atlantic Ocean some thousands of miles above the water.  Grandma was nice enough to drive our car home from the Cleveland airport with the gas tank on empty at 4pm.  We felt a bit rushed before we knew that no one was in line for anything at the airport; we arrived only 1 hour prior to our international flight.  We had a layover in Chicago for about an hour where we had our *last* American meal, Subway.  Then, the fun began.

The interesting thing about our flight is that we would be flying across 7 time zones in approximately 8 hours. Knowing how comfortable sleeping on the plane would be, I prepared for the worst: the continuous day.   Airplane food was alright, but the real highlight was that beer and wine were free.  The in-flight movie (“The Vow”) was nothing spectacular either.  We took off during the evening and arrived in Paris in the morning, hence beginning day 2 of the transit without really sleeping.

I was upset that when we went through customs they didn’t even stamp my passport (so I guess I never really went to France then…).  We walked around the airport for too long trying to figure out how to get to the Metro. Once we found it, we ended up deciding to take a taxi instead.  Watching taxi cabs drive inches from cars on 3 out of 4 sides of the car is a thrill ride, always guessing which car you may bump into next.  Of course, most red lights are optional apparently, seeing as our driver managed to make it through intersections when I swear he was clearly in the wrong.  Nevertheless, we made it to Hotel Innova in once piece, receiving our first friendly, “Bonjour!”

Hotel Innova was located in the middle of Paris, south east of the Eiffel Tower.  We had to take the “lift” to get to our 7^th floor rooms.  The first big adventure was attempting to figure out what to do with the wall sockets to plug in stuff.  Naturally, I made the mistake of trying to use one of the converter attachments to a splitter without any sort of adapter in between.  Upon plugging it in, the 220V blew out a shot of electricity or something and all the lights went out.  I had blown a fuse in the room. Shamefully, I walked down the 7 flights of stairs to alert the front desk that I had been a hasty tourist that didn’t read the bullet points about “how to use the wall socket adapter”. 

After the fuse was repaired, we headed out to our first lunch in France.  It was some Café on a street corner called Café Pasteur.  The main problem that my family realized is that when you respond to people in French after they greet you, most of the time they will continue to ask you something else that you weren’t prepared for, leaving most of my family confused.  We attempted to leave because it looked as though there was nowhere to sit but one English speaking man walked out and promptly stole tables and chairs from other groups an formed us a seating right in the sidewalk.  We felt a little out of place.  After we were seated, he pointed out that the main courses all had English translations below it, but the rest we could just figure out.  Good to know for someone like me who only knew how to say please and thank you.  I decided to be adventurous and try the raw hamburger meat, Steak Tartare.

Steak Tartare - the only hamburger meat eaten raw

Yes, I am in the future also, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.  If you have never tried it before, I recommend getting a small taste before committing to the entire meal of it.  My family had a good laugh after seeing what it actually was.  I ate every last bite but I would never order the dish again.  A few other notes that I am convinced about eating out for my first time in France are below:

• Everyone else seems to order wine with all their meals. Sounds like my kind of country
• In addition, everyone orders “Café Express” or espresso shots after their meal. No matter what. I didn’t see a regular glass of coffee anywhere
• All café tables are meant for two people and no more, so don’t bother trying to squeeze a third person in. It only makes you drop more stuff and look more awkward than you already were.
• Going along with that, people don’t seem to mind sitting veryclose to one another. The close proximity thing is new to me I guess.
• People eat French fries with forks. The only food I thought was really the definition of a finger food was no longer. Hence, I didn’t dare look like a pig and used my silverware for any food that was presented to me.
• Everyone dresses really nice. I felt like no one had a hoodie, or any semblance of what I consider comfortable clothing there. Dress to impress I assume.

… more to come

The Louvre Museum

After lunch, we spent a little bit of time being confused on how to purchase a Metro pass.  We thought it would be a good day to go to the Musѐe du Louvre since it was raining pretty hard. We spent about 15 minutes trying to get information since the automatic kiosk wouldn’t work. At this point I walked outside to find that it had stopped raining and that we should just walk outside and explore instead.  We continued south into Paris until we found L'Hôtel National des Invalides where the double-decker bus tours that ran though Paris along the major monuments/statues/buildings that we wanted to see anyways.  We got on that bus which was pretty unique experience to me, even as a “veteran” tourist. Before, I was convinced that taxi drivers were insane but after riding on some of those buses, I am convinced that some bus drivers are above all logical traffic laws.

Bus ride with the family

 We saw a bunch of different tourist places on our trip. We drove by the École Militaire and the Luxor Obelisk.  We decided to get off the bus at the Tuileries Garden where Mom was able to find the first place that charge you €0,50 to use the bathroom.  However, the bathrooms were spotless.  We took the tourist around the Grand Bassin Octagonal, a fountain in the middle of the garden.  I was not sure what was so great about it; there were about 50 people sitting around it in lawn chairs as if something was going to happen.

Getting back on the bus wasn’t as easy the second time, mostly because it started raining and no one would get off the bus.  Instead of getting back on the bus, we decided to traverse over to L'église de la Madeleine, a massive Roman Catholic church close by.  We went inside and took a few pictures to wait out the rain so that we would have a better shot at getting on the next bus when it wasn’t raining. 

Once we got back on the bus, everything became a blur because I started passing out sitting up (running on no hours of sleep was finally catching up to us).  Somehow I woke up to us passing through an archway into the Musѐe du Louvre where we got off to see if we could get in for free since we didn’t think it would be worth it to drag 5 sleepless beings into a quiet museum where they may just pass out at any moment.  Unfortunately, no free museum since it was open until 9:30pm, not the original 6:00pm we had thought².

Notre Dame

Next stop on the bus tour was Notre Dame, the famous church from that Disney cartoon we used to watch.  Inside we found a bunch of people lighting candles and taking pictures (without flash of course).  Dad decided to light a candle for Grandpa.  The place was massive and just as we were walking in, they started a procession to begin their Friday evening Mass.  After not understanding anything they were saying, we left to get back on the tour bus to see the symbol of Paris, the Eiffel Tower.

We were too tired at this point to actually go and see the tower, but we rode on the bus around it a few times it seemed.  We figured we would check it out another time when we had more energy.  On our way back to the room, we spotted a café that looked similar to the one in “Inception” the movie so we decided to take a picture and compare later.  Once back at the hotel, everyone who hit the pillow passed out immediately.  Two continuous days sounds not so bad at first, but at the end of it, you can barely stay awake.  Needless to say, we all slept soundly on our messed up sleep schedule, hoping that tomorrow will give us some energy to make it through the day.

¹For the duration of this blog, everytime I say “we” I mean my parents, my brothers Nick and Lucas, and me. I refuse to spell that out throughout the post.
²We would find out later that the only time the museum was free was the first Sunday of the month as well as anyone under 18 – so remember that if you plan on going.