The cars are all mini-to midsize here
(but not as small as the car pictured above) because otherwise they wouldn’t be able to fit on some of these streets. People park facing either way on the same side of the street. In the residential areas the sidewalks are about three feet/one meter wide here and are usually studded with people’s garbage containers, so it’s almost impossible to walk two abreast.
And it seems most streets, which are wide enough for one car, are two-way. At least Bordeaux is pretty flat, so you can see all the way down to the end of the streets, which seem to have no plan or pattern to them — they aren’t parallel at all but sometimes just come together at strange angles for no apparent reason and you get intersections of three streets or or even four streets . . .Sundays everything shuts down after noon. Supermarkets close at 8 on weekdays.
Yesterday I got paid for a translation job: 1800 euros (about $2500). So I decided to go to the store for some beer and groceries, but I obviously didn’t want to take all that money with me so I grabbed a 50 from the wad. Got to the store, made my purchase, around nine euros and whipped out my fifty, which was a 500 . . . I blanched and so did the cashier. (I had no idea they’d have a 500-euro note here . . . it’s crazy! Lose that and you’re in big trouble.) Well, the store manager had to be called but everyone behind me in line was highly amused and I was duly given my change.
Other random notes: no one has screens on their windows. And I mean no one. And there is plenty of insect life . . . I have become newly reacquainted with that bane of my African-era existence, Anopheles latens and the extremely large Bordelaisian houseflies.
Yes, I highly recommend Bordeaux, the land where vegetables must be weighed . . .
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