What comes after after Board N? Bordeaux!

Forgive the terrible joke that heads this entry - almost as bad as the French Film one.

In any case, my panicked flight from Nantes led me to a calm, scenic train ride through Western France for about three and a half hours. A French girl about my age was seated next to me, and three Italians were across the aisle. After I'd cooled off and begun to feel like a human being again, I started conversation with the girl next to me, only to find that her English was not very advanced - not surprising, her being from Nantes. So we said what we could. My end of the conversation was restrained to speaking of breakfast items and my geographical origins, those topics within the extent of my extremely limited French. She was likewise quiet after she told me she went to school in Bordeaux and had been raised in Nantes.

Then the Italians began to chime in, with similarly broken but often coherent, short sentences in English. Yet our intercourse began to dribble away, once more, after pleasantries had been exchanged. Then came the question: "You talk another language?"

My initial response was, "No," though soon amended to, "Um...poco Espanol."

Both the eyes of Ms. France and the Italians lit up! It turned out that we all spoke Spanish! Thus we spent a greater portion of the next hour conversing in a language that was non-native to all of us, on a train in France. What an experience. I still have to admit that out of the five of us my Spanish was the worst (Europeans: 1, USA: 0), but our linguistic discovery made the trip far more enjoyable.

Once in Bordeaux I did not feel inclined to find my hostel straight away. The tram I took into town from the train station ran along the river - The Garonne - and I stopped off just before the city center. By the riverbank, buildings reminiscent of Paris rising up behind me to the West, lay a small, rectangular, man-made body of water resembling a reflecting pool. Yet there was nothing but the sky above it to reflect nearby. Children, bounding barefoot, crossed and recrossed it, splashing occasionally, yelling often. Parents lounged nearby on the steps facing the river, or else more attentively planted on the cement edge of the shallow pool. I tell you it was only about two inches deep, so that all looked as miniature saviors, treading on the dark, liquid surface. Here I dipped my feet in, trousers rolled up, and myself looking quite ridiculous - though content.

I read there for about half of an hour, and sought food at a cafe nearby. I recall eating a rather terrible salad (don't order salad in Europe, they must think it's synonymous with 'lettuce') and drinking an overpriced beer, but the one's lack of the flavor and the other's lack of economy did little to unsettle my high spirits.

I came into town and did a bit of walking. The Opera House is lovely, a beautiful example of - I believe - neoclassical architecture, facing an open square faced in by various cafes and the Grand Hotel. I may have gotten a coffee there, and certainly found a grocery to buy a baguette and brie, and soon departed for my hotel.

I say hotel - but be not misled. I had only declined to stay in a hostel because I could not find one close or reasonably priced online; and though the hotel was a bit pricier, it was a single room. I now recall my first journey there fondly, though I do not think I felt it so then. Informed by a local that it was 'a bit outside of town,' I had no doubts when I stepped onto the tram and set off towards my abode. Riding the tram as far out of town as it would go before returning, I transferred on to a bus (the #15, I believe), and rode it for fifteen minutes, roughly. At this point I was growing skeptical of my choice in lodging. I had been traveling for nearly thirty five minutes, and was no looking forward to having to make such a trip each time I went to and from town.

But my time sitting on public transport was a breeze compared to the next leg of my journey. Originally having no idea where my hotel was, exactly, I had shown the bus driver the address and asked him to signal me when my stop came up. Fifteen minutes later he slowed the bus near a traffic circle that led onto a highway, and pointed to a solitary building standing more or less in a field, surrounded by tall grasses, across four lanes of rapid, French motor traffic. Eyes wide but undaunted I thanked him (Merci!) and hopped off his bus.

Then came the gambit. It was like a game of frogger, except with life and death. I made it across rather quickly the first time, but the next night I was not to be so lucky, when the driver forgot my stop, and had to let me off on the highway. In any case, the hotel itself was nice, and marginally cleaner than my hostel in Paris. I had a big bed in a room all to myself, with the added amenities of a private shower and bathroom - bliss to the traveler!

That night I found an extremely reasonably priced restaurant where, for 12 euros, I ate a bucket of mussels (Bordeaux is next to the sea), half a roast duck-breast, a slice of chocolate cake with ice cream, and had a petit glass of wine to boot!

I spent some time that night strolling around the town center, but, understanding that my reaching home was contingent upon buses and trams that stopped running at some point, I returned to my hotel (after waiting thirty minutes for the bus). What did I do there? Having little interest in turning in early, I turned on the television. I must say, there really should be an international law or something that bans the dubbing of John Wayne films into French. That man's voice just cannot be duplicated - especially in Francais. The blunt, often gritty dialogue characteristic of Westerns just doesn't mesh with the tone that language operates in. It felt like what I imagine substituting cream in your coffee with butter would result in. An who has ever heard of butter in your coffee? The French? - apparently. I laid in bed until midnight, eating brie and a baguette with a bottle of bordeaux within arm's reach, and sampled dubbed American westerns, the Simpsons, and crime shows.

The next morning I awoke extra-early to compensate for my run across the highway to my bus and tram. After I grabbed a free yogurt and a glass of orange juice, I soon found myself at the Musee de Beaux Arts in Bordeaux. Of course compared to Paris their collection was minute, but even held up against Nantes' gallery the one in Bordeaux seems lackluster. Albeit most of the building was closed for construction, the gallery itself was merely a series of three or four connected rooms, with dominantly religious painting from earlier periods. I would recommend a visit in any case, but do not get your hopes up. Regardless, it is always refreshing to seek out and view fine art, and I found a few paintings that inspired or moved me in any case. Pictured right is a painting by Theodore Gudin.

Soon I was in the town center once again, waiting in a queue near a large bus for an all-day wine tasting excursion I'd booked ahead of time. I filed on, surrounded mostly by French-speaking 40+ couples, with a few English voices dappling the coach's muddled conversation. In an effective though bizarre move, our guide spoke in both English and French, repeating (ostensibly) what she said in her native tongue in mine. The result was an interesting bilingual affair, and a display of the guide's impressive ability to switch fluidly between languages. Funny enough, however, her English was far from perfect, and she kept referring to the current year as "Oh-Eleven" and last year as "Oh-Ten," etc while speaking about vintages.

We motored east out of Bordeaux across the river, up into a hilly section spattered with country estates and sprawling vineyards for as far as I could make out in the distance. The vines were low to the ground and little more than awkward, shriveled-looking stumps in that time of year, but their mass abundance in neat, interminable rows astounded the eye. No grapes yet - just their promise in the form of young green growths on the gnarly brown bases. We came by a smaller estate identified by a large sign displaying the names of several awards it had won, and apparently it was the Pomerol vineyard, which is one of the best kinds of bordeaux. Our destination, however, was Saint Emilion.

At the vineyard we were led around the grounds (relatively small, we were told) and through the tank house, where the wine is prepared and begins its journey to the bottle. After getting squashed about, the juice, grape skins and all, is left to sot for a period of time, until all the skins are removed and an agent is added to begin the fermentation process. After this the wine of casked and sent into a building about twenty feet away, where we were able to sample glasses of some of the finest wines the estate has to offer. If I had ordered these wines at a restaurant, the bill would have been appalling, but for just thirty euros I got a tour, a tasting, and a free bus ride through the country.

The wine was, of course, exquisite and, though my palate usually favors white wines, I have to say that I am sold on bordeaux after learning about it and tasting such fine vintages. During the tasting I met two girls on holiday that were studying at Oxford - both Americans. Amazingly enough, over a month later (just last week) I was in Oxford myself, and who do I meet but one of the girls! One day I meet her in France, sipping vino, and a few weeks later we are discussing the UK's university system in England. It's not like Oxford's campus is very central either, with two dozen different colleges she could have been walking around.

After the estate tasting we hopped back on our bus to get spirited up the road to the actual town of St. Emilion. The entire town is, essentially, devoted to the sale of wine locally and internationally, with a long, involved religio-political history. The current state of the town belies a far grander past, now evinced only in ruins and winding, cobbled streets. I wandered at my leisure for a while, sampling - gratis - wines from half a dozen or so shops, surrounded peacefully by the ancient walls of a crumbling village. Set on the top of a large hill, the town looks down upon leagues of vine-brimming estates, multitudinous and mostly family-owned and operated. The feeling of being there mocks our language's poor devices, and may be understood only in imagination, or perhaps by metaphor that I will spare the effort to produce. In short, it was a moment I am unlikely to part with in memory.

Thus brimming with some of the finest red wine in Southwestern France I headed to...church! Not for devotion, however, but rather - characteristically - for tourism. St. Emilion (named for a priest who achieved sainthood upon his death) is home to one of the world's most unique houses of God. Not only is it quite old, but, when it was functioning, its congregation had to progress underground in order to worship. The 'underground church' looks like little more than a relatively tall steeple pegged into the earth if you walk straight up to it, yet the steeple itself actually sits on top of a massive, vaulted-ceilling church carved into the underground hundreds of years earlier. It's entered through the side, lower down the hill. The carved walls feature devotional tableaus and symbols, and chamber leads to chamber until the church opens up into a massive, three-aisle cathedral composed totally of continuous, solid rock. Now lit artificially, it was no stretch of the imagination to conceive of its walls cast with shadows from torches flickering, the low tones of a priest's Latin bounding off the imposing walls.

After St. Emilion I returned to Bordeaux, lamenting that I could not purchase any delectable vintages to take along with me, as I flew the next day to Milan, and had only a carry-on with me, thus barring any chance for my transporting 750ml of liquid across any airspace. After dinner and a jaunt about town, I turned in, to arise early the next day to leave for Italia.

I arrived perfectly on time to the airport after my daily highway crossing, bus, and tram - this time with a train thrown in - and with about an hour to wait until boarding I stoked up some chatter with a fellow traveler in the terminal. Her name was Mai Wu, and she studies economics in Bordeaux, though a native of Canton region of China. As with the French girl and Italians on my train ride from Nantes, my lingual skills met resistance once more, as Mai spoke only Cantonese and French. She knew enough English to convey basic things to me, but much of her understanding of English remained filtered through her French, turning 'patriotism' into 'pah-trih-ou-tis-muh,' and so on.

Amazingly enough, I was able to communicate with her with relative ease, armed with a pad, pencil, and a gradually expanding comprehension of basic French, aided by my study of Latin and 'root' words. By the time we were landing on Italian soil, I had, somehow, explained to her the history of Western Religion from Judaism through the Reformation, the American political party system, and what Walmart was. Likewise, she had explained to me Confucianism and most of her life story - and we hardly spoke a word of each others' language. The writing and drawing came in particularly handy.

In any case, such was my time in Bordeaux. Each place I visited in France felt distinctly different, from the antiquated cosmopolitan atmosphere of Paris to the vineyard-ringed streets of Bordeaux, but I have to say that - even though I haven't written about Italia yet - out of all the countries I've visited in Europe, France comes in second only to Scotland, which shall, undoubtedly, remain close to my heart long into the future.

Onward, to Nantes!

After London and Paris, the 'city' of Nantes was a refreshing withdrawal from the bustle of metropolitan life.

The Gare du Nantes was the simplest and most straightforward train station I had yet to deal with, and my impression of this one building did well to preface my experience of the city itself. No tube, no metro - just a humble tram system, ambling past sloping, cobblestone streets lined by columnar cypresses, crossed by their parallel shadows swaying in the breeze. After leaving the station, I crossed a lazy street dappled with growing mid-afternoon shadows to a cafe (called The Globe, or something like it) where I was, to much amazement, able to purchase a filling lunch of meat, bread, potato, ale, and coffee, all for around 13 euro - a meal whose Parisian counterpart may have cost over 20.

The type of meat that I consumed at this cafe shall forever, for better or worse, remain mystery. However, because of its rare cooking, unique texture, and mysterious origin, I am tempted to call it horseflesh! Cheval! I had already been told of the French disposition for consuming horse meat, and my knowledge of such a practice had in no way averred me from the prospect of meeting such a dish at the table. As the closest appellation for my meal that I could conjure into English from my French menu was something approaching 'meat of the day,' I contented myself with allowing that, very likely, horse was the day's fare.

My brief respite complete, and head a bit fuzzy from ale and caffeine, I muddled through my thoroughly-packed rucksack for directions to the residence of Ms. Celeste Tarbox, the likes of which I had scribbled down - nearly as an afterthought - the night before I made my frantic sprint to the Edinburgh airport. They turned out to be, just about, the best directions I had been given - and, retrospectively, was to get - during my entire trip. On to one tram and off for another, a five-minute stroll through the quiet, two-storeyed outskirts of Nantes, and a left turn down, if I recall, Rue Longchamp, and I was before a largish creme building, with the knowledge that Ms. Tarbox would be arriving any minute home from her employ.

My visit with Celeste was half-providence and half-imposition, though the latter half in the most well-meaning spirit. She is a Franklin and Marshall graduate of 2010, now living abroad in Nantes as an ESL assistant teacher at a local school through a program set up by the French government. Originally having arranged my two-night stay in Nantes at the suggestion of my friend Katie Cooper, who studied there last year, I was delighted when Celeste read on facebook that I would be in her area and told me she lived there. Already at a complete loss as to what I wanted particularly to do in Nantes, following, as it were, that providential wind which whisks travelers to perils and wonder alike, I inquired whether or not she would mind letting me occupy a small area of her floor for two nights, enough to sustain the restful hours of a 5' 9", 130 lbs., 21 year old young traveler.

She happily consented, and even extended to me the loan of an inflatable mattress.

Not knowing Celeste particularly well beforehand - or at all, really, our only connection being that we may have been present once or twice together at parties between my fraternity and her sorority - we spent the evening in conversation over a little dinner in her flat, after which I retired to my mattress. If nothing else of enrichment may be said for my various European travels, I assert that the friendships I made and re-made over my weeks absent from Edinburgh rank just for me as highly as my awe at scanning Paris' rooftops from the Eiffel Tower's summit or standing before the David in Florence.

The next day I spent in comparative leisure from the days of rushing around England and France's capitals. After a visit to the post office and pharmacy - my 100ml travel shampoo had run out - I settled at a cafe near the convergence of three small streets to sip on a beer and read in the sun. I remained in this way for much of the day, extending my residence at the cafe's table with strategically-timed orders of cafe latte and another beer. A older man with an accordion, I recall, came by to court the lunchers and leisurely for the sweeter part of an hour, and though I did not pass him a coin for his troubles, I reconciled myself with my lack of charity through the words of Robert Louis Stevenson, who writes thus of the artist:

"What shall he have enjoyed more fully than a morning of successful work? Suppose it be ill paid: the wonder it should be paid at all."

I had acquired in Cologne, earlier the previous week, a keen appreciation for the pleasure-seeker's necessity to judge the movement of the sun, and how the surrounding structures would cast their shadows resultingly; for there is nothing ruder that spoils a young lounger's day than to plant himself with a book and baguette at a sunny cafe, only to have the sun shift so that all is thrown into shadow, and have the metal table upon which he rests, and the cobblestones upon which he places his feet, turn cool and hard, and consciously so, that the idea of their discomfort impedes the pleasures of reading and drink. Such a lack of judgment in myself effected my move from one table to another, and then to another cafe overall, so that I had drifted down the cobbled lane by the time that Celeste came to meet me after work.

She had some fruit-infused, sparkling wine (quite popular in France), and I finished my beer, and soon we parted ways, that I might meander about the town. Meander I did, and toured the local castle (chateau) and surrounding shops and alleys. At an antiques store, I bought, for 50 cents euro, a 1 franc coin, which, taking the conversation rate that would apply today between those currencies, probably accounted for that old Frenchman's most lucrative sale in history! He may as well have sold me a bottle cap for a dollar. In any case, I count the franc as an interesting acquisition, and well worth the purchase, especially for the tidy sum of 50 cents.

From the chateau, quite close to the town hall square, where I'd lounged earlier, I continued up a street flanked on one side by the castle's moat, and a row of shops on the other. With no destination in mind, I faced in the finest direction that the leisurely traveler may choose: any, and was soon on a main road, the one flanked by cypress. Eventually finding myself at the Nantes Musee de Beaux Arts, I took a stroll around inside, delighted to find many works and artists with which I was familiar, and others I had previously been ignorant of which caught my fancy, such as this painting by Chabas.

Though apparently the sixth largest city in France at around 250,000 residents (Phoenix is America's with about 1,400,000), I reminded myself that comparisons to America were needless, as both my land and that of France's defy evaluation through quantitative means. For instance, though France produces nearly twice as much wine annually, some French wines must certainly taste worse than some American vintages. So with inhabitants, as many French men and women I met had far more character than many Americans I'd met at home.

Rather I measured the city on its own terms, as I feel is usually healthiest approach in evaluating anything, at least initially.

A slower city, a quieter one, too, yet a city of endearing quaintness, the kind often wished for by the inhabitants of more prosperous, more central, more relevant cities in the world. To walk by the river Loire, to navigate without direction the intertwining streets leading easily back to where you began, to take in the subtle contentedness lying static near the cafes and brasseries - all a pleasure, and all unique to Nantes. In other aspects I am sure it is less pleasant. I merely had the advantage of being the traveler who is pleased by pleasure alone, and does not seek out worry or disadvantage with what surrounds him. To him, all is bliss, or he is poorly constructed.

That night Celeste and I abandoned all thoughts of another night in and struck out for a creperie. The crepes I had tried before had all been street fare, vended to passersby from street stalls and mobile carts, made hastily in the Parisian afternoon by careless hands that worked by habit, and closed off minds which dwelt not with the body's dismal labor. Rather this restaurant was a place of domestic charm, fitted with homely decoration according to the French style. For dinner I had a thick crepe mixed with crisp cheese, topped by an egg and strips of thin ham. Delightful is all I shall call it, for who can do justice in words to pleasures divined by pallet alone? Dessert defied description likewise: a sweeter crepe toped with fresh vanilla ice cream drizzled in melted home-made caramel, garnished, perhaps, with a strawberry.

Both courses demanded and done with, we finished off the last of our pichet of dry cider and sought a drink across the street, after which we strolled home through the calm but vibrant night, full of busy Nantes-peoples on their way to and from houses of drink and song.

So concluded my stay in Nantes - simple, indeed, yet full of pleasure that may not properly find communication. The same dumbness of language may visit a vacationer to the Rockies as simply as a holiday-seeker in the French countryside when called on to produce a tale of their travels. The moments of travel as sweet joy to the traveler, the joy itself meted out partly in recitation, and the rest, one could say, is silence.

Of Celeste I may only sing praise. She was gracious to let me stay with her, and the most pleasant of surprises where concerns finding a friend. Our talks were refreshing, our dinner joyful, and it was nice enough to simply have a semi-familiar face to be around in a strange country, among foreign landscapes.

The last event of any note to take place for me in Nantes was my morning of departure. It being a Saturday morning, I rose softly from my air mattress so as not to wake Celeste on her morning intended for rest from a busy week, and moved into the other room to pack my things up. After some dabbling on facebook and email, I left Celeste's with roughly thirty minutes to get to the humble Gare du Nantes. With the aid of the able tram system, and a route that I had already picked out, I stepped on to the cab with little worry on my mind. Yet calamity struck when the car stopped in the center of town - for a street market had set up there with dozens of stalls, and straight across the tram line! Thus impeded, the content tram began its journey back the way it and I had come, leaving me a confounded straggler.

By backpack was not light, I was wearing khakis and a button-down, and beneath the sun of the gently warming day I had no small amount of difficulty barreling past grocers and shoe salesmen in the crowded market of Nantes as I scrambled to direct myself towards the train station. At last I discovered from afar an unimpeded tram line, yet when I boarded its car, gasping "Gare du Nantes? Oui? Gare du Nantes?" into the faces of its bemused and partially alarmed passengers, I received only the unfortunate reply of, "O...ehh...serry, but ozzer way." Ozzer way! Other way! Now I was four hundred yards back from where I had begun, and had to run now to follow the track to the station on foot, as my train left in eleven minutes, and the next tram in its direction was eight minutes away.

So I ran - and how swiftly and clumsily I ran shall never be known to man. I hardly recall the fleeting minutes of mad scrambling towards the station, hands full with my jacket and a poster tube, legs burning, shirt clinging to my chest. All I recall is a driving thought, only half-materially, more of an emotion than anything else. It is, likely, what rowers or other endurance athletes feel during their various performances, and translate roughly to: "Yo, don't stop going, because stopping now will only make all the way you've come worthless, and all the way you have to go more painful." So I didn't stop, and I ran, and ran and ran - onward until I nearly collapsed in front of my train, which had arrived the moment I set foot on the platform, and which I certainly would have missed had I stopped running for a moment.

Tired temporarily, I took my seat next to a quiet French girl about my age, and readied for a pleasant three hour train ride through the countryside to Bordeaux, content in my recent show of willpower, excited for the continuation of my travels.

Lastly, I have to say that - forgive, but I can't help myself - my time in France really gave me an appetite for 'French film.' Look below: