William was coming to visit for the weekend and we had planned to meet in Bordeaux so that I could show him around there before coming back to Périgueux. My morning ended up a lot more stressful than initially planned but it’s funny to look back on now at least!
I got up at a ridiculously early hour for a saturday morning and walked to the market to buy supplies for Sunday’s dinner. I was all prepared for the first time with my rucksack so I could actually carry things – this was immediately rendered pointless when my carrots had stalks (is that the word for the bushy bit on top?!) took up my whole bag. Point to self – ask for stalks to be chopped off next time. I dropped the things of at home and made my way to the train station.
In my little headphone daze, I bought my ticket, read the board above the door to see what platform I was on, went there and hopped on the train. Then the train moved in the wrong direction. I look up at the screen at it says “Ce train à destination de USSEL.” Where the flip is Ussel?! Turns out it’s about 3 hours away from Périgueux in opposite direction to Bordeaux. So I had got on the train that arrived from Bordeaux, and not the one that was going there… but don’t worry the train man told me, you can get of at Brive in an hour and catch the next train back.
So an hour in the wrong direction, I get of at Brive and I am told there isn’t another train for two and a half hours, and that train will take a further two and a half hours to get to Bordeaux. This is when I realised I forgot my snacks, and of course, in a small town in France, at lunch time on a saturday, everything was closed. This makes for a very hungry and annoyed lauren, so instead I walked around and found the only open things – chain stores – for a place not much bigger than Périgueux they have a H&M!!
I eventually got to Bordeaux a whole 5 hours later than expected and met William who had arrived earlier. We were both shattered so just saw the Mirror and then caught the train back to Périgueux haha, I’d show him the rest on Monday.
The rest of our weekend was much more relaxed, we had indian takeaway for dinner and watched movies and ate more. And sunday morning we did the same again before taking a walk around Périgueux. The weather here is still pretty crazy and lovely, but the trees are all loosing their leaves so it makes for a nice mix of autumn and summer.
Sunday evening we got out the crazy stalked carrots and other supplies I had bought and cooked ourselves a pretty amazing dinner, definitely the most French meal I have cooked since I got here! We had come baguette, wine and cheese for starters followed by beef bourbingion, Potato gratin and some roasted veg.
On Monday we caught the correct train into Bordeaux and had a walk around, looking at the cathedral and everything else we had missed out on Saturday. We finished of by having some questionably cooked, but delicious burgers in a cute little square in the old town.
It was lovely to have him down for the weekend, there is just something so comfortable about friends from home. I love my friends here but we are still getting to know each other and our friendships are all so new and young, there is something so simple about friends you’ve already went through all that with!
I’m looking forwards to going up to Rennes soon to repay the visit!
C'EST LA VIE 