Seriously, December?

Last night we went out with our friends Carley and Danielle to celebrate the end of their finals week. It was still sort of surreal to me, maybe because I really only had about two weeks of actual work during the whole semester, and most of that was me procrastinating my paper rather than just getting it done.

Still, it was a good celebratory outing. Vianney and Benjamin ended up meeting up with us. Somewhere near the park at Gambetta at around midnight we encountered the only group of violent people I've yet run across in France, who, after asking us if we had any cigarettes, for some reason I couldn't understand, hit Alex and then pushed Benjamin over twice before disappearing into the night. Everyone was okay, if a little confused. We hurried home.

This morning was its own trial. I had alerted our landlady to the possibility that Something Was Very Wrong with our kitchen plumbing. Every couple of hours there's this tremendous gurgling and water sort of shoots out of our kitchen sink -- we'd told her about that before. It even happened at the very moment we were signing our lease, so she was present and witnessed it on at least one occasion. Add this to the perpetual puddles of water forming on the floor in front of the sink and microwave, and on the counter where the coffeepot sits and where the microwave lives, and I thought we should probably have her come look at it.

Of course, she came on the one day there was no water in any of the aforementioned places, and continued to assert that it was probably just us spilling water all over the place when we do dishes. Or water from the dish rack flying about of its own accord when we left the dishes to dry. I'm not sure how either hypothesis made sense. She and her husband DID notice, however, the interesting moldy corner were water is always pooled, and he started feeling around and noticed that the wood was incredibly soft.

So he started pulling the wood away. It came away in handfuls that resembled nothing so much as fecal matter, really. Unfortunately, this analogy extended to smell also. There was this cavity under the bar filled with rotting wood and puddles of brown water (the same that we had tried to tell her had been leaking through the wall toward the kitchen, but which she had maintained "we must have spilled while washing dishes". Yeah. Ok. We wash our dishes with rank brown water. You caught us).

He pulled all the wood out and wiped up the water...she maintained that we "must have spilled a bottle of water down there, which sat until the wood rotted". I'm really unsure of how that would even be possible, as 1) there was a ton of water, which, if we'd just spilled it, would mostly have evaporated and 2) that doesn't account for the dripping, sloshing noise that happens while water is draining from the sink and 3) the wood was rotting when we moved in.

They left that gaping hole there, and we're supposed to watch if any more water comes. I'm sort of caught between surprised and angry at her reaction, which, apart from cleaning the rot out, really probably wasn't that helpful.
Afterward, Maria and I went to the Christmas Market, which was quite enjoyable. The sporadic photos are from that event. On the way there we ran into some protestors who were angry about some kind of government policy to kick out immigrants. I've never been in a position to see something like that from the point of view of a pseudo-immigrant, so that was interesting. The big banner says "It's capitalism we should get rid of, not immigrants." They were walking past pretty quickly and I was on Rue St. Catherine, which, from the photos, you might be able to tell was really crowded. On Saturday afternoon in Bordeaux, it's the place to be. I'm told it's the longest shopping district street in Europe, but who knows how accurate or important that is, really. Point being, I wish I'd gotten better photos.

Passing Grand Théâtre, we saw a roving marching band playing on the steps, which was pretty cool.

The Christmas market itself was crowded, and full of vendors selling knickknacks and roasted chestnuts and crepes and waffles and kebab. We were on a mission to buy cheese and sausages, since last week Maria had promised some friends of ours we'd have a party involving wine, cheese, and sausages. This turned out to be a good idea. We had Xavier and his girlfriend, and Andre and Carley and Danielle over, and we all hung out and talked until pretty late. It was the first time we'd planned to have people over to our house for any kind of planned, party-reminiscent gathering, so that was kind of cool. I mean, I guess it means we have a sufficient number of friends now. Or something.

Anyway, sausage is an interesting thing in France. They're just hanging about, dried, and without packaging in the grocery stores. Part of me thinks this is really strange, and the other part of me thinks hey -- it's already ground meat wrapped in an animal's own intestines, how can I possibly be squidgy about how it's displayed in the store? Anyway, we did eventually find some, at this little stall that only sold sausages of various kinds and parmesan cheese sold in various sizes from chunks the size of your fist to giant lifetime-supply wheels. We got cups of vin chaud with cinnamon, which, at first, sounded kind of off-putting, and ended up being pretty awesome. The last photo was my attempt to capture the moment one handed, while not dropping my camera or spilling hot wine on myself. It's not a good photo, but it's what I got.

The next chapter for the afternoon found us heading to Monoprix for more supplies.


It's the times like this, when we're throwing parties in ill-equipped student apartments, that I realize how much of my mother's entertainment style I picked up. I regretted not having enough platters to put cheese, crackers, etc. out on. We only had four wine glasses, one of them cracked. Our other glasses didn't match. We had no napkins, just cheap paper towels. Of our two kitchen knives, one is serrated and the other was scarcely sharp enought to slice sausages without also slicing fingers off.

On the plus side, yesterday I finally managed to procure vacuum bags that more or less fit the model of vacuum we had, but not before two trips to Auchan and lots of confused reading of every box they stocked, looking for the right model number. In the end, not one of their bags matched, which might explain why the previous tenants left us a whole box of vacuum bags that didn't even remotely fit our vacuum. In the end, I came home with something that wasn't precisely right but wasn't too far wrong, and we all cleaned the apartment together for once. It was approximately five times cleaner when we finished than it was when we moved in, which is why I had to bite my tongue when our landlady came in and told me that I should wipe the cabinets periodically so that it wouldn't be too difficult to clean the place on departure, even though I know full well how filthy the place was when she gave the previous tenant their deposit back.

Anyway. It's been a week of departures. Alan left on Thursday, and our friend Carley leaves Monday for Canada, to get a new visa. She wants to come back and work in the spring semester, but that plan depends entirely on her ability to find a job in Bordeaux on really short notice, so we had to say our tentative goodbyes tonight, in case she never comes back from Toronto. It's put me in a reflective mood. I'm really glad I decided to stay for a whole year and not just a semester, because I'm not remotely ready to leave, even though I'm beginning to miss people and things from home.

I leave on Monday, at 5 a.m., for the Great Ridiculous Christmas Adenture of Ought Nine Slash Journey into the New Year. I'll be taking a train to Paris, to London, to Bournemouth. On Christmas Eve I'll be taking a train to London, and a plane to Geneva to meet up with Rachel, followed by many shenannigans, I'm sure.

I may be making periodic posts along the way, but it's possible I won't, too. If all goes according to plan, I'll be back in Bordeaux on the evening of the 6th of January, just in time for my state-mandated doctor's visit on the 7th.

And so it's 5:40 a.m. GMT+1, and I'm reflecting on 2009. It hardly feels like Christmas is approaching, though I couldn't say why. Bordeaux's hypothetical halls are good and decked, and it's certainly winter. I can tell because it's cold outside and my skin is doing that miserable drying-out thing that it likes to do. I'm hoping I'll kick into holiday mode when I leave, and it's officially Christmas vacation.

If I don't talk to you until I return, merry Christmas, and happy New Year. I hope the holidays find you with people you like to hang out with, doing the things you'd like to be doing rather than the things you feel like you should be doing. In fact, that might be good advice for the entire new year. I know it's what I'm aiming for.