The half an hour wait for a bus to the centre of town left us frustrated and angry at the lack of tourist offices in Gare St Jean, where we were to spend only two nights. The woman there sighed at the prospect of having to speak English for at least the second time this century. Nicely enough, she booked the one star hotel St Remi (I was in need of a bed that I could actually sleep in) right in the centre of town. It couldn't be described as heaven now, but at the time it gave us the opportunity to let our personal habits (cheesy feet and unbearably smelly poos) come to the fore.
However, one thing was truly necessary: laundry. I asked our small mole-style manager where I could find 'un lavarie'. He looked at me as if I was demented.
"Un lavarie? Pourqoui? Votre vetements?"
"Oui. Je suis odeureux."
"Boff."
That evening, feeling clean, we just sat and vegged out in front of the TV, wondering if Bordeaux had anything to offer apart from excessive dog poo underfoot. We then shared the smallest double bed imaginable (well, small for two overweight backpackers).
It still turned out to be a better night's sleep than Paris, where I had slept a grand total of 7 hours in three nights. A pain au chocolat for breakfast, followed by the purchasing of our next train tickets, meant that it was time for sightseeing.
And by 'sightseeing' I really mean looking for a pub that would be showing the Arsenal v Middlesbrough FA Cup Semi Final. Nevertheless, we wandered about town, finding the English style park, where to our amazement the sun joined us for about an hour; and then decided it was too cold, and got warm by hiding behind the clouds once more. Damn. Three hamburgers later though, we hit gold. An Irish pub with Sky Digital. We were all set!
Walking around town, we were amazed at the sheer amount of dog poo there was befouling the pavements. It was as if the French didn't care that their town was beginning to smell like Ted's pants. It even shocked me that Bordeaux town council hadn't noticed this or employed anyone to do anything about it.
We saw one of Europe's largest squares (covered in poo), the commemorative Girondin Fountain (squirting poo to a height of 20 feet), and the Lotte (a gigantic river - of poo!). Looking back, it seems that Bordeaux City council knew about their poo problem, but actively encouraged it, investing in new technology in the race for more effective poo production techniques.
Having trod lightly back towards the Irish pub (only slipping up 3 or 4 times in poo), we ordered our compulsory pints of Guinness and began to cheer on our team - about 600 miles away from the event. A dull, but much needed game finished 1-0 to the Arsenal with a Festa own goal. It wasn't a shock to see a dog in the pub. We watched it cautiously, as it sat in a very strange manner, as if it was about launch itself into space, or something.
"Aller chien! Faire un grand poo poo!" shouted a member of Bordeaux town council, but alas, the landlord took it outside to the middle of the pavement, much to the disappointment to the French members of the audience. I was so elated at Arsenal's victory that I partied by myself in the town's main street.
We dined at the Chinese restaurant adjacent to the hotel that evening, to celebrate reaching the FA Cup final. Afterwards, we returned to the hotel to find our hotel manager, watching pornography with his trousers around his ankles. It was even stranger to see that Steve Guttenberg was the star of the movie,
"um, j'ai...j'ai une petit probleme avec ma jambe...mais c'est bien maitenant! Bonsoir!"
Bordeaux had served its purpose well.
We left Bordeaux in glorious spring sunshine and sweltering heat.
"Can't we stay here Ted?"
"No."
"But it's nice and hot and we live next door to a sex shop!"
"No! It's hotter in Spain!" So, reluctantly we headed for the train station and boarded the train headed for Irun, just on the Spanish side of the border. We were obviously leaving the good weather behind us. A storm was brewing.
Irun
We crossed the border and were already utterly confused. The signs were in two kinds of jibberish, and they sky was black. We also had 10 minutes to find our connecting train. We approached the ticket office, and said in our best Englishman abroad accents:
"Dos...pour...San Sebastian...por favor". The man eyed us up for a moment, and then gesticulated wildly in the direction of the platforms. "Yes, yes. We know they're trains. Which platform?", he then assumed we were American, and replied
"Orkay mayn, plafform nommer waaan." So we went to plafform nommer waaan, and boarded the next train.
