Week of 26 Fevrier, 2024
Lundi
We returned to a dark and rainy Bordeaux tonight after a mostly sunny week in Portugal, which was a tad depressing. Still, I'm so glad we got to have our little getaway. One of the big reasons we wanted to move to Europe is the easy access to other countries, and this was our first flight to another country since moving here. The flight between Bordeaux and Lisbon is about an hour and a half, and we paid under 250€ for our three tickets. And because it’s the off-season, most of our accommodations were dirt-cheap. It was all so much easier and more convenient than traveling from the U.S., but still we somehow overextended ourselves and ended the week utterly exhausted and eager to return to Bordeaux. Maybe one day we’ll learn how to pace ourselves when traveling.
Mardi
I wanted today to be a do-nothing, recovery day, but sadly we returned home to bare cupboards. So we ventured to the grocery store, but not before a stop at a favorite “cantine Chinoise,” which has a sticky-sweet eggplant dish that may be the best thing I’ve ever eaten. We then walked over to the Auchan hypermarche, a three-story mega-supermarket that’s located in a shopping mall. After eating out all week, I’m in the mood to do a lot of cooking, so we filled the cart to overflowing, all the while wondering if we’d be able to carry everything home.
Grocery prices in France are fairly similar to the U.S., though some things are significantly cheaper, like in-season produce. Oranges from Spain and Portugal are very inexpensive now, for instance, and I’ve seen toddler-sized sacks of carrots for 3€. Eggs and milk are pretty affordable here, and there’s not as much of a price difference between organic (bio) and non-organic products. Toilet paper is way cheaper here, and I can easily find a good bottle of wine for 5€. However, out-of-season items like berries are super pricey — I recently saw a container of blueberries for 10€!
After checking out and nearly having an aneurysm while bagging our own groceries (why is this so stressful?), we made it back to the apartment with our bulging canvas sacks, huffing and puffing, before the rain started. Not going to lie — I am seriously missing some Kroger free curbside pickup.
We were all craving a simple, veg-heavy dinner, so I sliced and roasted a bunch of carrots until they were just slightly caramelized. I served them with a feta-cherry tomato salad and instant potato puree, which we tried on a whim and turned out to be delicious. And of course, we tore through a fresh baguette with salty butter, which I sorely missed during our week in Portugal. All washed down with some tasty dry riesling from the Alsace.
Mercredi
There’s nothing like a temporary change of scenery to help you look at things with fresh eyes. At least, that’s how I felt walking around Bordeaux today after our week away. We love Portugal — in fact, we spent our first few days there fantasizing about moving to some small village on the coast. But there’s just something about France, and Bordeaux in particular, that feels right. I like to think that we can have chemistry with places just as we do with people. Portugal is a fun fling, but Bordeaux feels more long-term and steady.
We didn’t do much today, really. Walked to the park, appreciating the clean streets and pretty buildings along the way, and the quiet, efficient tram rolling down the street. We admired the flowers blooming in the park, and the meticulous landscaping, and all of the parents carting their kids around in their cargo bikes. We stopped at the bakery for croissants, greeting the now-familiar bakers, and left a trail of buttery crumbs all the way back to our apartment. It was a good day.
Jeudi
It was another rainy day, Oli is still off school, and none of us had any interest in leaving the apartment. So I did a bit of cleaning, some writing, did a French lesson, built a Lego and baked cookies with Oli. We played Mario Kart and watched TV and made fajitas. I realize this would have been a normal chill day back home, but here we always feel like we have to be doing something. And it was nice to not.
Vendredi
For dinner tonight, I made something that I’ve been dying to try since we arrived in France: Raclette! Though very popular in France, especially in the wintertime, this dish has Swiss origins. It involves melting a huge wheel of cheese and scraping it over a plate of potatoes, cured meats, pickles, and whatever else your heart desires. There are a few restaurants in Bordeaux that do it the traditional way, lugging a giant wedge of cheese from table to table. To make it at home, many people have little raclette grills that allow them to melt individual portions of cheese in something like a mini frying pan, and then dump it over their plate. It’s common to see pre-sliced raclette cheese in the grocery store, which is what I picked up for tonight’s dinner.
Since we didn’t have a giant wheel of cheese or even a raclette grill, I just melted the cheese in a nonstick frying pan before scraping it over my roasted potatoes, salami, cornichons, and baguette. Oli and Todd opted to skip the cheese, which they crudely said smelled like “caca boudin” (poop sausage). I loved the dish, despite their constant complaints about the aroma that quickly permeated our apartment. Though I did have to admit, once dinner was done, that it did smell pretty ripe. We opened the windows despite the cold, rainy weather outside and threw away the remaining cheese. We’ve learned the hard way just how much destruction a stinky cheese can wreak (pun intended) on a frigo.
Dimanche
Today Bordeaux celebrated Carnaval with a parade that went from the right bank of the river to the left. We met it halfway, watching the procession in front of the Gross Cloche, a medieval belfry and rampart gate that’s one of my favorite monuments in town. The parade was joyful and boisterous, with drummers, dancers, and tons of kids (and many adults) wearing costumes. It did get progressively wilder, and we decided to move along when we’d seen a few too many girls (and some guys) in barely-there thongs. Between today's parade, topless women at the beaches, and nude statues everywhere, we're all becoming a bit more comfortable with the human body, in all shapes and sizes.