We Made New Friends!

It turns out that on our first organized activity of the trip, we met and made life-long friends.  

(Editor: Two observations: one, at your age “life-long” doesn’t mean what it used to.  And two, you’ve only known these people for a week.  They live in Florida.  How do you know?

Writer: Two replies: one, I’m not dead yet. 

And two, ah, sometimes you know even over a short period time.  We just have to work at staying in touch with them.)

Only seven of us had signed up for the 9:30 am Bordeaux Gourmet Walking Tour – Carol, Don, Jennifer, and myself, and a couple and their friend.  It was essentially a foodie tour, and it was a lot of fun.  

The three from Ponte Vedra, Florida, Lisa, Scott, and Jamie turned out to be our companions for much of the week.  They were quite nice, easy to talk to, and we were immediately swapping stories and talking, all while listening to the guide and chowing down on excellent local food.

Our first stop (unless it was our second, honestly I don’t remember) was at a fruit and vegetable shop that had many delicious-looking items.  Our guide bought some figs (yes!), raspberries (yes!), and something else but I’m blanking.

As we walked, she talked about the history of the city, the importance of wine to the economy, and then interesting aspects of daily life in Bordeaux.  She took us to the Gross Cloch, which Carol and I had visited the previous afternoon, but filled us in on more of the history (I’m sorry, but I have already forgotten our excellent guide’s name).

From there she brought us to the smallest bakery in Bordeaux, a tiny shop outpunching its size in the wonderful smells of freshly-baked bread.  The bread was amazingly tasty.  It was the ancient variety of bread, and let me tell you, it was the best.  Especially since the baker sliced it for us, so it was the best thing before whatever came next as the best thing.

(Editor: Oh, I get it.  You just made a tortured “best thing since sliced bread” joke.

Writer: To be fair to me, it was easier to tell the joke about “since it’s sliced bread, it is the best thing” than it was to write a similar formulation of the joke.)

We wandered all over the streets of Bordeaux.  Another stop was at a candy shop where the shop-made chocolate was to die for, although, fortunately, no one died.

Our penultimate stop (although I may have missed one in this recounting) was at a big indoor/outdoor market, where we ate different types of cheese and drink some local table wine.

We ended the tour at lunch, sitting down and enjoying various foods.  Carol and I split an mushroom omelette, because we were already stuffed from the morning’s victuals.