Planète Bordeaux

Today, we headed out to Planète Bordeaux, which we had seen in a pamphlet at the office du tourisme in Bordeaux. Planète Bordeaux is a building that many wineries of the Bordeaux and Bordeaux Supérieur AOC (appellation d'origine contrôlée) have pooled their money together to educate on, promote and sell Bordeaux and Bordeaux Supérieur AOC wines. Planète Bordeaux has won many best of awards including Best Of International Wine Tourism so we figured we would check it out. We took the tram to the other side of the river and hopped on a regional bus to get out to Planète Bordeaux.

The tour had different rooms arranged in a descending circle that told you about different phases in the wine production.

The first room talked about what happens in the vineyard at different times of the year...

...as well as the soil, climate, etc. that makes up the famous "terroir" as the French call it.

The next room had a film on the land and countryside. For sound you got to put on these retro 70's style headphones that you might be able to see in this picture above. I liked them and wish I had a pair for home.

The next room revolved around the wine making process and what goes on at the chateau.

The vinification process of whites. I took pictures so that I could reference it for the winemaking terms in French.

The vinification process of reds, ditto of above.

The next room had the stainless steel tanks and a film on the process of turning grape juice to wine. Tank on the left, film in the upper right.

The final room downstairs had information on tasting, corking and barrel making.

The olfactory part of tasting.

The different scents you can smell in wine on the nose.

Testing the nose. These tubes were filled with scented crystals and you had to try and guess what they were. You could move the white tab to the right of Katie's hand to find the answer and see if you were right.

After finishing the tour, we were able to taste a few wines and then could check out the cellar (see above) if you wanted to take any home with you. This is what I want my cellar to look like someday!

US president Barack Obama and French president Nicolas Sarkozy

From what we have gathered by talking to our classes, teaches, etc. is that the French really like US president Barack Obama and really hate French president Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarkozy has made changes to the long-standing French work-hour regulations (the traditional 35-hour week) to now allow employers to negotiate overtime with their employees and making hours worked past the traditional 35-hour week tax-free. He also is trying to encourage people to work on Saturdays and Sundays. All this being said, here is a flyer that Katie found hanging at her school. I think it pretty much sums up how the French feel about this. Enjoy! ;)

The Office Gift

How awesome is this??? Some friends from Dell, my old work, sent me a care package!!! Thanks Lindsay and Brad!

Yours truly, displaying the package, ready to tear into it.

Katie and I are really like (maybe obsessed with is the more appropriate) the show, The Office. Not sure when it started or how but we feel like the characters on the show our are friends. Well, Brad and Lindsay are also fans and we used to talk and joke about the show all the time at work. Here is the outside of the package. In the upper left is the Dunder Miflin, the name of the paper company in the show, on my wrist is my "Dwight Schrute" calculator watch. Above our address is Schrute Farms, which is the beet farm owned by the character, Dwight Schrute.

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Determinded

Worker

Intense

Good worker

Hard worker

Terrific

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Classic. A really nice touch. On the back of the note they had written was Pam's art school project, a computerized picture of Dwight Schrute. Hilarious. - Question. What kind of bear is best? False. Black bear. Fact. Bears eat beets. Beets. Bears. Battlestar Galactica.

Office notepad and mouse pad, sweet.

Michael Scott's WORLD'S BEST BOSS mug. - Wow that is really hard. You really think you can go all day long? Well, you always left me satisfied and smiling. THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!

oh, but there is more. Never short of practical jokes, I started to find SWAG (Stuff We All Get) from my desk at my old job, like my old name tag I had pieced together.

My framed picture of good Ol' Mike D. (Michael Dell). This was a hand me down from different people that had left Dell. Seemed like everyone that inherited it had been let go or left. Guess they didn't want this on their desk, can't blame them!

The old DIMITRI sign.

A pen and some moist towelettes from Famous Dave's (They used to always bring in free lunches, mostly BBQ, man that sounds good right now!)

It's good to be boss.

Though I quickly realized that I should give the mug to the REAL boss in the house.

Such a cool gift! Thank you so much Lindsay and Brad. It was so thoughtful of you to do this!!!

Arcachon (or a day at the beach)

Spring has definitely arrived and summer is just around the corner. With the weather turning nicer we decided to head down southwest to the beaches of Arcachon! We picked a beautiful Saturday and caught the early train for a daytrip to the beach.

Here is a look out at the one of the piers.

It was a bright day and still a little chilly with the cool breeze. No swimming for sure and definitely not shorts weather (although Katie was wearing them).

A picture from the pier down the beach.

Arcachon was a really beautiful beach and I was surprised of the length. We kept strolling down the beach and it kept going.

Made me remember my times at the Dunes Lake shore along Lake Michigan back home. Only this place was cleaner.

We set up our picnic on the beach, ate, read, and fell asleep on the beach for most of the day. Here was the view.

Arcachon is known for it huge dune called Dune du Pyla. This thing is monsterous! It reaches a a height of 107 meters (351 feet tall). Katie and I both thought that the dune was at Arcachon but we walked along the beach all day from one end to the other but saw no huge dune. Should be obvious to see, and we were wondering if we were mistaken and it was at some other town. As we were walking back towards the train station, we stopped along a street with a bunch of shops and saw postcard with the Dune du Pyla on it. Sure enough, it was in Arcachon. We couldn't come here and not go! We headed to the train station to see what bus we needed to take to get there, hopped on and took a 25 minute ride to the dune. We got there as the sun was going down and noticed that there was a long line for the bus. Katie immediately thought, maybe we should check when the last bus was....yeah, so the one we took was the last one going back. Not wanting to be stranded, we hopped right back on the bus only taking in a quick glimpse of the massive dune and then headed back to catch our train to Bordeaux. Here is the best picture I got. You can see part of the dune in the middle of the picture in between the trees...a bit of a small mountain!

Versailles & Goodbyes

The next morning, we took the RER train out to Versailles, famous château of Louis XIV.

Another pic from the train.

Outside the outer gates, with the men selling the Eiffel tower souvenirs.

Inside the outer gates here is the main path leading to the château and main gate.

The elaborate, golden main gate.

One of the first stops along the tour was the cathedral that was built so the king did not have to leave his home to attend mass.

The upper part of the the cathedral.

The next part of the tour included the royal family tree and paintings of the royalty like the one above.

An intricate tapestry displaying the crowning of one of the kings.

Louis XIV aka le Roi Soleil (the sun king)

Louis XVI - The king that lost his head after the French Revolution.

The (in)famous Marie Antoinette - "Let them eat cake."

The tour continued with room after room with paintings, sculptures, gold plated art, fancy chandeliers, marble walls, etc. I think that those kings had some money in France...maybe all of it!(hence the revolution)

A marble and gold sculpture.

This is a close up of just above the rectangular gold sculpture. A face of a man with a lion for hair.

A door.

Just one of many huge murals on the ceilings.

Time for a quick break.

Da Jenn and Katie - Take 1,

Take 2,

Take 3 - Third time's a charm.

Another face of a man with a lion for hair. Thought these looked cool.

A picture of the cloth wall paper.

A bust of a famous painter, might have been Charles Le Brun - Chief Painter to the King. Not sure though.

The Hall of Mirrors.

A view out one of the windows.

Katie with headphones on.

The queen's bedchamber with Marie-Antoinette's bed.

The King bedchamber of Louis XIV.

A view out Louis XIV's window. This was his point of view when the Parisians had besieged Versailles during French Revolution in 1789 and forced him to flee.

Us, resting a moment.(we have all these pics with headphones cuz that was "the guide" in our "guided tour." unfortunately, we didn't think it was as informative as it could've been, as far as history and every day life...)

Room modeled by one of the Napoléons.

Crowning of Napoléon Bonaparte this is the other copy of the painting that I talked about in the blog with the Louvre.

Napoléon Bonaparte.

Katie striking a pose.

The Battle Gallery - a 120 meter (that's almost 400 feet) long hall with huge paintings recounting the major battles in French history.

The American Revolution with our French allies.

A hall with many statues of famous people of French history - leaders, warriors, writers, artists, scientists, etc. Interesting to see the face of some famous names-katie's favorite part of the tour-putting faces to names of people she'd learned about in college.

Napoléon I

It was now time to visit some of the beautiful gardens behind the château. Here is a picture of out the back.

On the side.

Beth and Derrick.

Katie and Jenn work on "Le Tigre" à la Zoolander. Unfortunately, it was too cold to have a picnic outside. As you can see this didn't stop me.

Us.

So numerous hours walking around stairing at countless paintings, sculptures, etc. can make you a little crazy, not really sure what is going on here...

...I have no comment.

again not sure.

but no matter where you are, it's all about who you're with...

...good friends, good times

There is no way that you can turn down the chance to get a "Royale with cheese" as they say in Pulp Fiction from Chez McDo. Nothing like a little "first dinner" as Katie and I have come to call it. This is the dinner/snack that happens around normal American dinner time at 5-6 pm so that you can make it until the European dinner time at around 9 or 10 pm and sometimes later

After a long day, we kicked our shoes off, put up our feet and hung out checking out everyones pictures. A good way to recap the whole trip and all the great memories.

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Early the next morning, we all headed to the airport to say our goodbyes, share some hugs, and shed some tears. "We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when, But I know we'll meet again, some sunny day." (most likely in Nashville later this year ;) )