August 28 -- the rest of the day in Bordeaux

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It is now past lunchtime. We are on our way to the luggage store.


The secret garden is escaping its confinement.





Ice cream.



I think it is "Glup's" rather than "Glue's"..... The fourth letter is more ... upright ... on the light-up sign than it is on the painted one.





New-suitcase mission accomplished.

Time for a silly interlude. We are fans of the Blues Brothers movies. In Animal House, at the end, one of the Nazi Youth is standing in the middle of what is almost totally chaos, saying (rather frenziedly) "Remain calm! All is well!"

(Movie trivia note -- this character was played by Kevin Bacon, in his screen debut....)

When we saw this sign, in our hotel hallway, with the running stick figures and the admonishment to "remain calm," we were amused. (and we weren't at all clear what precipitation had to do with it....)

We wondered if anyone who did not read French would be able to make anything intelligible of this........





Our room was just to the left of that red triangle at lower left.





Time to head back out in search of a canelé.

All you Kansas City people -- look what we saw!

(Kansas City is the home of Hallmark. My brother's first dog was on Hallmark cards.)





Here's the place we were looking for. Baillardran sells canelés in three different sizes, as well as three different hardnesses of the sugary outside. The darker they are, the harder the outside, from fairly soft to hard-candy crunch. I think we had a medium, medium.

It was pretty good!





More fancy stuff. I didn't do a good job of capturing it, but that thing hanging down at the bottom is another lion paw. We weren't sure what was up with that.....





I saw this exact top and necklace in a store in Bayonne, and was sorry I didn't get its pic. Lucky for me, I got another chance in Bordeaux.

I like the necklace, especially. Not for a little kid, particularly. I like the idea of crocheted "beads" and the fabric flowers....







I saw the necklace, first, and then....

My camera helpfully focused on the flaws in the window -- this is a plastic vacuum-molded doll. Taped to the wall.  Probably clearer in the first pic in this series....

??





And why does the bear have tape on his head?



Ah well. Some things we will never understand.



This, however, we understand quite well.

At last, we make it to the Mirror when it is in full use.





Water-colored to obscure identities. It's my belief that French (European?) standards of privacy are higher than ours. I'm pretty sure it's ok to take pics of people in public places in the USA. Thinking it's not ok in France..... If you look at Google street view, you'll see that all the faces are obscured, in France....





Love her reflection, her shadow, and the cloud reflections.





Ever'body love the Mirror.





Sometimes mist came up from below the pavement.











We watched for a long time. How thoughtful of all those parents, to bring their kids here so we could enjoy watching!


At last, we tore ourselves away.

A look up the Garonne.



See my daughter's take on this part of the day here.



Time for dinner. We went to La Grille au Thyme. My seat allowed me to see the chef doing the grilling (CB, you'd have felt right at home -- he did a lot of the turning, etc, with his bare fingers.....). He also was plating the grilled dishes. He had a large container of salad, another of mashed potatoes.... I could watch him put all of his work on the plates, and could see him sprinkling the delectables with seasonings.... I missed the Food Network commentary I am used to, when watching someone cook!

Our tablescape, before dinner was served. I love both of these images.....





We started with a salade de foies de volailles. ("with bird livers") I have always liked liver, particularly bird liver, and thought this was quite good. The livers had been grilled.....

We also had garbure, which is a cold-weather soup with bacon and cabbage and carrots. That was good, too, and (thank goodness!) the day wasn't as hot as the day we had cassoulet in Carcassonne -- we were better able to enjoy it.

The pièce de résistance was blood sausage, cooked in an aluminum-foil package with apples. It was delicious.

I had had blood sausage before, in the USA, and had thought it was ok.  This was wonderful.  Delicious.  The apples were the perfect complement.  Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Ahhh.

See my daughter's report on this excellent dinner here.



After dinner we headed back to see the Mirror again. It was just a couple of minutes from the restaurant (on foot), and both were just a very few minutes (on foot) from our hotel. That hotel was excellently placed for everything we did in Bordeaux!


The Mirror, at night.

Nice, eh?





See the big kids on scooters on the Mirror?









Our hotel. The lights are pretty, yes?



We were on the floor just above the sign (1st floor, with European numbering).  Our windows are in this pic -- third from the right, I think.....



In order to facilitate chronological traverse of these posts, here is a link to the post that comes after this one.

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