May Travels: Bordeaux, France

The last installment of assistantship travels commences: We finished up our time as assistants on April 30th! My flight to come back to California was not until May 22nd, and so we all had some time to travel. Ara, Steven, Sarah, and I decided to take a trip to Bordeaux. We found cheap plane tickets (only 40 euros each!) and I got to stay with Amber again!

The first day we arrived in the evening and had plans to go out on the town but those quickly deflated as we were all exhausted and I was staying a little further away from the others.

The next day we got up and headed out to see some of the city. We walked around with Amber, watched people tango in front of the Hôtel de Ville, went up a tower, went inside a church. Then that night we went out to some of the bars we knew and had a fun time! My favorite mojito place ever is in Bordeaux and it's called La Comtesse.

The next day we decided to take the bus to the western coast of France (about 2 hours away) to a city called Arcachon. There sits the Dune de Pilat (the largest sand dune in Europe) in all her majesty. We took a two hour bus ride to Arcachon and then spent the afternoon enjoying the sunshine on top of the dune. On one side of the dune there's a TON of forest and the other side is the Atlantic Ocean. It was a day of sun that kept sliding into rain but it was really lovely. If you ever get a chance to go to Bordeaux or near it, the Dune de Pilat is really an amazing sight worth seeing!

The last day we got up and went to lunch at a Thai place that is amazing and Steven and Sarah were leaving early in a blablacar. Ara and I had until later when we took our OuiBus to Barcelona! so we wandered around, took in the sights and enjoyed the Jardin Public before it started to rain.

Next post upcoming is......BARCELONA!

The happy family on our way to Bordeaux

Cute houses in Bordeaux

Beautiful architecture

Awkward family photo by the turtle

Ara!

Amber!

Steven!

Tango!

Fun night on the town!

Dune de Pilat!

Jardin Public

the other side of the Dune

My love, Amber <3

April Travels: Lyon, France Part 2

So, a quick look back at the end of my April vacation way back when (I need to finish all my blog posts, it's just getting rather pitiful). So, after our beautiful soujourn in the land of fondue and Swiss banking, Ara and I swung through Lyon for one more day before traveling back down to Toulon. We met back up with our new friend, Tristan, who let us stay in his family's lovely house for the evening. Tristan and his family are surely some of the kindest, most accommodating people I've ever met. They lent us each a room, his grandmother made us a huge dinner, we made them an American brunch, and then we ate lunch and played pétanque with them the next day. Here are some pictures!

Most of these pictures are car pictures

Tassin-la-Demi-Lune (I think)

 I mean, you can't get much Frencher

Learning how to shake hands

Taking a Blablacar home

Beautiful sky

It was so nice to just spend a lot of time relaxing after a crazy couple of days. We took a walk, made flower crowns, and played a couple games in the evening. Thank you Tristan! I can't find any of the pictures of us, apparently I was enjoying too much to take any. What sweet memories to look back on. :)