blue bum.

This week has not been terribly exciting I'm afraid. The weekend is not boding any better, but you never know...wow, how quickly I've gotten complacent. Not terribly exciting...but still in France!

On Monday I went to classes in the morning and then fluffed away the afternoon. I went for a hike down the Rue St Catherine which is the longest (pedestrian only) shopping strip in Europe. I was looking for the Camper shop but didn't find it. I think it might be in a little shopping mall, or perhaps just a section in another shop. I also went to Monoprix to buy some snacks, so that I don't have to keep running to the chocolate machine mid-morning. I haven't quite decided if Monoprix if posh or el-cheapo. It feels posh(er) but it's cheaper than my local supermarket. Anyway, predictably I found myself in the 'international' section (despite everything being international to me) and bought a drink called Royal Soda from Martinique. I don't think I've ever had anything from Martinique before! It advertised that it has has an 'arome banane' but actually it tasted like (fake) banana, but with the aroma of housepaint. It was drinkable but I wouldn't buy it again. I also bought some nuts, the most savoury looking muesli bars I could find (only 1600kj/100g!...) and one of those old-school pens with the four coloured...ink dispensers? Le French is ruining my le brain...

Anyway, I also went to the local supermarket and managed to find the tissues this time (and the Lindt again). It turns out the French prefer those individual packs of tissues, so there's heaps of those in big multipacks, but hardly any normal boxes of tissues. Which explains why they were hard to find. I had better not catch a cold because I suspect those wonderful aloe vera tissues don't exist here. Which is kind of funny for a country obsessed with ailments. In the afternoon, I went to the English bookshop to ask for a job, but no joy. The man said you really need to speak French to find a job in Bordeaux. Nuts.

Tuesday was not an interesting day, but I did buy some raspberries. Yum, yum, raspberries. I've decided to start valuing everything against the price of an espresso (1.2 - 1.8 euros), because compared to the AUD everything here is stupidly expensive (except wine) but I can get a better picture of whether something's cheap or dear in relation to the local earning capacity by tying it to a known quantity. Raspberries represent exceptional value (to me) because they cost the same as an espresso. Beer represents exceptional value because it costs less than a cup of tea. Cups of tea represent bad value because they are more than twice the price of an espresso. For a teabag. Although you do get a nice pot of hot water, so you can have two or three cups of (progressively weaker) tea from your ONE TEABAG.

On Wednesday afternoon I went to a cooking class organised by the school, but held at a place that specialises in cooking classes called the 'Atelier de Chefs'. It was good fun, but I don't think I learned anything I couldn't've just gotten from the recipe. We made chicken crumbed in oats and spices with rocket pesto mashed potato. We cooked in groups (somehow almost all of the class was Spanish-speaking so I was a bit out on my own) and then sat down and ate the fruits of our labour afterwards. It was very tasty and very easy and I think I'll probably make it again, but it really amazed me how clueless some people are about cooking. I mean, everyone eats, right? Watching people peel potatoes, for example, was hilarious. And try to mash them with a spoon. After that I went for a walk in my running park, and took some pretty photos. They have at least 3 kind of ducks here: the regular little brown ducks, the big white ducks with the orange bills, and the lovely ducks with the velvet green heads like in picture books. They also have geese and swans. They make interesting playmates for the kids in the park.

Oh, and did some handwashing in the sink. It turns out that my new jeans from Anthropologie are leaking ink ridiculously. I think they must've been reincarnated from a toilet duck, because I rinsed them at least 10 times and the water was still going dark blue. In fact my nails got stained blue...if anyone has any suggestions on how to freeze the ink I'd like to hear it, because I'm too scared to wear them until it's fixed. I'm worried if it rains they'll stain my shoes to start with, and also last time I wore them I turned the toilet seat blue...

Today I had classes all day. I went for a run afterwards in the pretty park, and then came home. I've been watching Belle and Sebastian this week with the little garcon which is bizarre. I assumed it was French (or at least European) because it's set in the Pyrenees, but actually it's Japanese. Which means watching it in French is no more accurate than in English. I remember watching it myself when I was very small, but literally all I could remember was that Sebastian is the boy, and Belle is the dog, and they're searching for Sebastian's mother. I can't say I've gleaned a lot more from the 4 episodes I've now watched, except that there's another (teeny) dog in it called Pouchie. And it's dated pretty badly. Maybe next week I'll talk them into watching Babar.

Tomorrow I'm going job hunting in the afternoon (I'm going to try a few of the bigger English schools) and in the early evening I have an 'introduction to oenology' thingy. I'm not sure what I'm doing on the weekend, but my family's going out on Saturday night to a party, so I think I'll have a quiet night in. I'll cook my own dinner (Yay! The food here is excellent, but I'm really looking forward to cooking again, and doing something with my hands) and maybe have a nice relaxing bath. Aaah, can't wait.