Beautiful ceiling? Check.
Gorgeous facade on which all the clocks were actually working and keeping time? Check!
Incredibly massive and beautifully stylized map of the region on one interior wall. Checkmate.
Stupid. Irresponsible. Delicious.
10/10. Would devour again. And getting served fast food in a beautiful wooden bowl with a real metal spoon was such a treat.
Stay weird, French Fast Food culture.
Meta-content-note:
I generally won't be posting 3x per day throughout this trip, but for today I had plenty of writing opportunities on the train and plane, so you got a lot of content.
We'll see what cadence I can sustain once the trip starts in earnest tomorrow.
For now, goodnight!
It was less than 2km to my little apart hotel, and the weather was gorgeous, so I decided to walk it and arrived just around sunset.
This part of Bordeaux feels like such a pure collection of French building styles it's almost startling. It seems pretty clear that this part of Bordeaux wasn't shelled much in either world war, (or this stone is just very durable).
This last picture has an Easter egg. One of my favorite weird things about English is that because of its ubiquity, it sort of represents the monoculture in the minds of a lot of non-English speakers. This means that sometimes other languages decide to use English words as loaner words to describe a thing, but not the same words that English people use to describe that thing. Take, for example, foosball.
I'm sorry, your bar has a what now?
So I have a very nice walk to the hotel.
I drop my stuff, and then go out for another small walk because it was 20:30 and if I sat down I was going to fall asleep instantly and also I wanted food (traveling + sleep deprivation = always being hungrier than is warranted considering how much of your day was just sitting).
I am staying pretty near Place de la Victoire, which includes this beautiful column that is apparently carved with the details and history of vines and wine, which are really central to Bordeaux's culture.
It's also gorgeous and a little mind-bending (at least to my jet-lagged brain) because it twists 45 degrees over the course of its climb, taking an otherwise "normal" tower and making it feel organic and almost grapevine like.
I drop my stuff, and then go out for another small walk because it was 20:30 and if I sat down I was going to fall asleep instantly and also I wanted food (traveling + sleep deprivation = always being hungrier than is warranted considering how much of your day was just sitting).
I am staying pretty near Place de la Victoire, which includes this beautiful column that is apparently carved with the details and history of vines and wine, which are really central to Bordeaux's culture.
It's also gorgeous and a little mind-bending (at least to my jet-lagged brain) because it twists 45 degrees over the course of its climb, taking an otherwise "normal" tower and making it feel organic and almost grapevine like.
Have experienced a small culture, I set my mind to food.
I had walked past a few French Tacos places on my way in, and was considering going back for one of those, but then I also saw some signs for a thing called a "crousty" or "krousty" and it looked unhinged so once I found out that Bordeaux claims to have invented it and that it's sortof a modern French fad food like French Tacos were a few years ago . . . I decided that would be dinner (in part because the Armenian/Georgian restaurant I wanted to go grab Katchapuri at was done serving food when I rocked up. I'll try there tomorrow I think).
Anyway, I went to a Krousty place near the bars that ring the aforementioned Place d l V, which were all slameed with students (Bordeaux is a college town and has a huge student population.)
I got to practice my French a little, in the bargain, which was nice. One of the difficult things about trying to speak French in France, especially in Paris, is that most French people in Paris speak English better than you speak French when you're learning, and want to practice their English and also don't love hearing their language mangled, so they tend to transition to English as soon as you start to struggle.
But tonight even as I was floundering and mangling it, the fellow taking my order kept defaulting back to French before struggling to recall English words, (I got the vague impression that English might be his 4th language) -- which was delightful because it forced me to try to use what's left of my French vocabulary as the 22 hour travel day comes to a close.
And in the end, 10 euros got me this monstrosity and an Orangina.
A Crousty is apparently perfectly fried chicken tender bits, chopped up and tossed in a wok with some seasoning and a f-ckload of something panko-esque, plus some sriracha on top, which are all layered over rice and a sort of . . . creme-fraiche . . . slash . . .uhh, ranch-like. . . sauce.
I had walked past a few French Tacos places on my way in, and was considering going back for one of those, but then I also saw some signs for a thing called a "crousty" or "krousty" and it looked unhinged so once I found out that Bordeaux claims to have invented it and that it's sortof a modern French fad food like French Tacos were a few years ago . . . I decided that would be dinner (in part because the Armenian/Georgian restaurant I wanted to go grab Katchapuri at was done serving food when I rocked up. I'll try there tomorrow I think).
Anyway, I went to a Krousty place near the bars that ring the aforementioned Place d l V, which were all slameed with students (Bordeaux is a college town and has a huge student population.)
I got to practice my French a little, in the bargain, which was nice. One of the difficult things about trying to speak French in France, especially in Paris, is that most French people in Paris speak English better than you speak French when you're learning, and want to practice their English and also don't love hearing their language mangled, so they tend to transition to English as soon as you start to struggle.
But tonight even as I was floundering and mangling it, the fellow taking my order kept defaulting back to French before struggling to recall English words, (I got the vague impression that English might be his 4th language) -- which was delightful because it forced me to try to use what's left of my French vocabulary as the 22 hour travel day comes to a close.
And in the end, 10 euros got me this monstrosity and an Orangina.
A Crousty is apparently perfectly fried chicken tender bits, chopped up and tossed in a wok with some seasoning and a f-ckload of something panko-esque, plus some sriracha on top, which are all layered over rice and a sort of . . . creme-fraiche . . . slash . . .uhh, ranch-like. . . sauce.
Stupid. Irresponsible. Delicious.
10/10. Would devour again. And getting served fast food in a beautiful wooden bowl with a real metal spoon was such a treat.
Stay weird, French Fast Food culture.
Meta-content-note:
I generally won't be posting 3x per day throughout this trip, but for today I had plenty of writing opportunities on the train and plane, so you got a lot of content.
We'll see what cadence I can sustain once the trip starts in earnest tomorrow.
For now, goodnight!
No comments:
Post a Comment