They should have a class for this (Stay in France Part II)

One of the very nice things about doing an internship in a country like France is that they have very interesting work laws. There is a 6 week compulsory paid vacation; people are not permitted to work for more than 35 hours a week, which can obviously be covered in the first five days keeping the weekends nice and long. I decided to make the most of the weekend and explore the city and behave like a proper tourist after all I am one. So this is what I did, Saturday morning I woke up had a quick bite and left to go to the city of Bordeaux. I was relying on this map the receptionist at the place where I’m staying had given me. So I somehow located the nearest bus stop, but I was confused about the direction I headed and therefore the side of the road that I was supposed to wait on. I tried asking one person but he couldn’t understand a word of English and I couldn’t explain to him in French what I was looking for. Then a bus came to that stop I got on it, asked the driver for a ticket but he refused to give me one, I couldn’t understand why. Two stops later the bus halted and everyone got off, I then opened my map in front of the driver and pointed out this bus stop in the city called Gambeta and I asked him for a ticket. Answering the later first he said that he dint have any and it was ok as for my destination not only was I standing on the wrong side of the road I also got onto the wrong bus. Thankfully at that stop the other bus also stopped so the driver told me wait here the bus No. 50 will come take that. I understood that part, so now I was on the right side of the road and knew which bus to take but still had no idea where I could get a ticket because their website (in French only) mentioned something about some tobacco shop. While I was waiting this elder lady was passing by with her 2 kids or grand kids, so I asked her. At first she dint quite understand what I was trying to say but then I tried some more tried speaking in the limited French I know instead of a mixture of English and dumbcharads. So I managed to tell her that I wanted a ticket. Then at a complete loss of translation I took out the English to French Dictionary I was carrying with me and found the French word for ‘go’ (aller) and then I told her “J’alle au gambeta. Ou (then I checked the word for buy) achete moi le ticket (I know its billet)” and she got it. Then for the next seven and a half minutes she explained to me how I could buy the ticket from the driver who is also the conductor and that I would cost me one euro forty cents and then something I did not figure. Then she went on to tell me how as such a ticket doesn’t cost so much because you can get a ten tickets together which will cost you 10 euro 10 cents but this single ticket will cost you one euro forty cents. Now either she gave me a lot more information that I just could not catch or she knew that I could not catch a lot of the things she was saying so just kept repeating what she said, either way I knew that I’d get the ticket on the bus. The bus came I gave the driver 1 euro 40 cents, I told him I wanted to go to Gambeta, he understood I was new to the system and started explaining to me how it works but again I could not make head or tail of it he mentioned some three and some hour and some other things but I just couldn’t understand. A long bus ride later I got to Gambetta. There I started walking in the direction that seemed the most interesting since I hadn’t seen any part of the city so I could see any part of it. Its either a law student thing or just my luck the first significant place I found my self at was the National Academy for law or their National Law University. 

A very interesting place, on the side walk near the entrance they have embossed their constitution on 30 steel plates (ya they only have 30 sections) and stuck them on the pavement, and a big one for the preamble. Then I went to visit this place called the grand theatre very old very cultural kind of a place. There I remembered that all sorts of bus and tram tickets were sold at the tram stations, so I went to the near by tram station and checked out this automatic ticket machine. Thankfully it had an English mode. I browsed through the entire system and now understood what the lady and the bus driver were telling me, they have an interesting system; a single voyage is considered as any number travels in any bus or tram for one hour. I took this day pass for the trams and busses, which basically meant that I could travel in any bus or tram all day long. I then roamed around that part of town seeing all these really old buildings and stuff very old world and picturesque got tones of pictures. 

Then I was walking along the bank of the Garone River where they have built a modern monument called the water mirror. It’s a large expanse of foot path which is depressed 2-3 inches and there are these openings in the tiles that sprout out water. So there is basically a large space which has 2 inches of water in it. In the evenings there a lot of people go there to hang out, couples strolling through the water wetting their feet children somehow managing to wet them selves in totality, nice place. There I was just walking along taking some pictures when I heard it. I hadn’t heard anything like that in a while so I was excited. Someone was speaking in English, I turned around and saw these two girls talking in reasonably fluent English, so I went up to them and spoke to them asked them what was nice to see in Bordeaux chatted for a min complimented their English and then moved on. By this time I was already quite tiered had been walking for a long time in spite of the bus and tram. So I decided to head back to the room.

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