May 27, 2011 Friday
Bordeaux. We got up and walked over to the Palais Gallien, which is a 2nd century Roman forum that held events similar to those at the Roman colosseum. Good old Roman "fun", but here in France. The place was burned in the 3rd century, and then in 1793 (just after the Revolution), the current wisdom was to tear most all of the remnants down to make room for new housing (sound familiar?). It seems the ruins weren't serving any practical function, and were therefore useless. Fortunately one of the gates and part of the wall are still standing. We then walked over to the town center where we found yet more good pastries and bought a baguette sandwich, which we greatly enjoyed.

We did some shopping at the local "hyper-marché", which is a huge 4 story affair and must have had 50-60 linear feet of yogurts of every type and flavor. Pretty amazing. Although we were later told that with the appearance of this "superstore", some of the smaller store have started to disappear and it was less social because people don't know you and ask about your wife, your dog or whatever. Sounds similar to the US also, however apparently the smaller food marts are said to be making a comeback.

Then we had to see the newly renovated sites: the Place de la Bourse, the Place du Parlement, the Porte Cailhou, the Porte de Bourgogne, and the Eglise St Pierre, where Lynne lit candles to St Antoine in memory of both of our fathers. And, finally, the Grosse Cloche, which is looking "simply mahvelous" these days in her renovated splendor.

We later called on Lynne's friends, Yves and Catherine, from whom she rented a room when she lived here while studying at the university. They spoilt her thoroughly then, and we spent a very enjoyable evening catching up. We had a grand time talking and drinking lots of wine and enjoying a pâté made from a wild boar Yves had shot outside of Paris, himself. We really enjoyed that so much he brought out a second pâté, which we also devoured. Yves showed us some home movies of the family today (4 children and 8 grandchildren now!), and later Luc (the oldest) came over and we all had a good time talking about old times, new times and everything in between. From l'affaire DSK to the election ofmthe first African American president of the United States. We really had a great time and exchanged email addresses and promised to try to stay in contact.