Our time in Bordeaux

One of the first things we had to become accustomed to was that they only sell cigarettes in stores called "tabacs". No where else, seriously. Not even gas stations. Now the trick is the tabacs close at normal hours since they are not corporations and in turn do not make employees work all sorts of crazy hours. This took some getting used to and we ran out several times with no way to get more lol! Good thing my brother and his wife smoke, that helped! There were many places were visited in Bordeaux. From the city garden, cathedrals, the main shopping strip (which is also the longest shopping street in Europe) other monuments and statues and of course a plethora of bars! The city garden known as Jardon Public, was probably the most beautiful place I went to while visiting. It has magnificent iron gates that wrap around the entire park. There is a pretty lake with a cute bridge. There is also is great big building with vines covering it. I'm still not sure what the building is for or why it was originally built but it sits in the middle of the park and upon climbing up the steps you have a wonderful view of the park. What interested me most was how, in the dead of winter, they manage to keep the grass green!? The gothic cathedrals were like nothing I have ever seen and are just unbelievably large and it makes you question how they were built so long ago! The detail is crazy! My brothers friend made a joke that maybe they had casts to assist with building some of the structures such as the angels. Not sure but to say the least they are breathtaking! Something everyone should see at some point in life! I took many pictures and posted on Facebook. The most amazing gothic cathedral I saw was the one in Saintes, France. It was brightly lighten with multiple colors. It was just a beauty. The bars are cool. They obviously serve different kinds of beer than in the U.S. We learned we enjoy vodka and syrup shots! They don't do flavored vodka but rather add syrup to the vodka. I personally cannot stand vodka yet enjoyed these shots. People can drink in France or at least Bordeaux! We decided to make our next trip Seville, Spain. We missed the flight due to having to wait for the hotel employee in the morning to pay for our room and he was late. So we missed:-)our flight. We asked what the next flight out to warmer climate was and the attendant told us Agadir, Morocco. Just so happens we planned on visiting there anyways! So later that night, we were off! We almost didn't make that flight either. There are trams that run all over the city. They are comparable to above ground subways. When we were on the way to the bus stop on the tram, Danielle dropped the cigarette she was smoking and I went to grab it right before the tram left. It left me. It was hysterical! We agreed to meet at the final stop. She thought I said the next stop and I thought she meant the final stop. You can imagine what happened next. We were going in circles looking for each other when we should have been on the way to the express bus that would bring us to the airport. Needless to say we missed the express bus. So we waited for another one and eventually took a normal city bus in hopes we would arrive on time. How horrible would that be to miss two flights in one day!? Well obviously that didn't happen. Going through customs in Bordeaux they took my fanny-pack first then Danielle had to give hers. We wondered what they wanted with our bags? Not even our backpacks! Ready.....our snorkeling gear! They couldn't tell what it was via the x-ray machine! That made us laugh pretty hard. It made us all laugh. The plane was the oldest I have been on besides to go skydiving on and I was jumping off that one so just imagine how comfortable we were on this thing. The one tip we have when flying into a new country is to fly during the day, if you have any interest in seeing the landscape. This is something we would have changed about flying into Morocco if we could have. We could see nothing and it would have been neat to see the landscape of a country and continent new to us. Well. We have met many nice people here. Before I forget! There was a woman on a scooter, just pushing along the sidewalk today. We saw here while eating lunch at a restaurant down the stretched from the hotel. Wanted to throw that in before I end this is blog. I'm going to bed pretty soon here. We have to wake up at 6am for our Sahara desert expedition! Miss you all! Xoxo

Pictures of our time in France!