4 - Le Premier Weekend - Anglet and Dax

 Saturday - November 18

I'm feeling better today than I did yesterday, the fever seems to be clearly in the rearview mirror.  All that remains can hopefully be resolved with a quick visit to the pharmacy (luckily only a block away).  It was a bit strange to enter the pharmacy and conduct all business en français, it seems most of the medications were accessible only via the pharmacist, which I guess makes sense.  She explained how much to take and how many per day was the limit, and the medicine ended up only being 6 euros too!

Les femmes de ménage arrived at my place just as I organizing my affairs for the day.  I asked for 5 minutes, which they were happy to take a quick smoke break, then quickly grabbed the things I thought I'd need for the day and put my clothes back in the closet.  

Afterwards, I made my way to Anglet.  Saturday was all about taking a gamble (un pari): I'd organized a surf lesson and I wanted to follow through with it despite not being at 100%.  With my lesson set for 2pm, I had time to grab lunch.  Here's another gamble, having just overcome the major effects of food poisoning, I rolled the dice on having les moules basques.   I'm not entirely sure what makes them Basque vs any other style aside from the sausage, but they sure hit the spot.

"Sacré Bleu, what is this?  How on earth did I miss, such a sweet little succulent crab??  Quelle dommage, what a loss - here we go, in the sauce!" - some French chef, probably

Lunch finished just in time to meet with my surf instructor, Rémy (I'm not exactly sure why, but my phone prompts the 🤙 symbol every time I type his name now 😅).  He was an excellent coach!  Operating out of a small storage unit near the beach, my lesson included a large, buoyant surfboard and a wet suit (combinaison).  The wet suit was definitely needed as while the water wasn't freezing, I'd started to lose sensation in my left big toe by the end of the 1.5 hour lesson.  Remy had offered to teach in English but I asked for us to try en français and use English for when I really didn't understand.  

We started with walking our boards to the beach along the boardwalk, which provided maybe just a little too much exfoliation of my feet but we made it to the sand just as I thought I couldn't take anymore.  Then Rémy 🤙 sat us down in the sand to talk mechanics of the beach, the waves, and this area of France.  There are 10 beaches carved out by rock jetties in Anglet and they serve as the northern edge of the Pays Basque coastline, across the river Adour (which the city of Bayonne is settled upon - not in anyway similar to Bayonne, NJ) starts the Landes territory of France.  Rémy 🤙 told me that this area is often referred to as "Biarritzifornia" because the surfing is like off the coast of California; however, unlike the coast of SoCal, Biarritz has rain for about half the year such that it always remains green.  Starting around August, the weather patterns in the north Atlantic and English Channel create a low pressure system in the Bay of Biscay and the steep beaches of Les Pays Basques make a wonderful staging ground for accessible wave action.  

A view southward of the beaches towards la Phare (Lighthouse) de Biarritz

Anyhow, with all that highly superstitious surfer talk out the way, we moved on to how to catch a wave and standup.  We were going to keep towards the center of our beach as much as possible, the natural erosion the waves perform near the rock jetties result in currents that can help experienced surfers quickly get back out to where the action is but can also just as easily send a surfer into the rocks 🤷‍♂️.  At the start of my time in the water (~2:30 PM), the trek out to the waves was in 2-3 feet of water; by 3:30, the tide had started to press in and wading was no longer an option.  I don't think I've ever given surfers credit (at least in my head) for how tiring the activity is: it takes a lot of effort fighting against the waves just with your arms or wading through the smaller surf.  By the end of my lesson, I was completely exhausted, but with Rémy 🤙's expert coaching, I successfully rode 3 waves a good distance.  I'm a long ways off from being able to pick and choose my waves, or aligning myself perpendicular with the white crest (la mousse) but I came away from the experience safely and had a lot of fun!  

As I was exhausted after my lesson, I bummed around the boardwalk for a bit but didn't quite have the energy to stay on the coast to watch the sunset while having a glass of wine.  Still, it was a nice walk with some great beaches.  And it looked like even more surfers turned out later in the day!  I suppose we'll have to see how the surfing weather holds out as we move deeper into the colder months: I pushed myself to do surfing the first weekend because I figured the water temps were only going to get colder - or as I was telling my colleagues: "Si je ferai de surf, je le fait ce weekend ou jamais" - if I'm going to surf, I do it this weekend or never.  

After recovering a little, I made my way back to Dax.  As I wasn't quite sure what to do for dinner, I made another trip to the hypermarché.  Last time I came in search of towels just minutes before closing, this time I had the luxury of taking my time and exploring the space.  The more I see of E. Leclerc, the more I wonder if it's the French equivalent of a fancy Walmart: the place has clothing, kitchen and household appliances, over-the-counter medication, a bakery, a butcher counter, a fresh seafood counter, a cheese counter, a produce section, a corner of the store dedicated to Landais duck products, not to mention the massive selection of wines, beers, and spirits; PLUS they were also selling Christmas decorations (get your kinder egg advent calendar today)!  

I'm not sure I'm high enough to eat this chou-fleur

So I picked up a few more grocery items with the idea of hobbling together some sort of dinner and maybe a lunch or two and made my way back home.  Of course, by the time I got home, I was just spent and went to bed at 8PM with no dinner; don't worry, I was back up at midnight to have some cheese (comté) and a bit of baguette with crême fraiche and jam.  My midnight snacking complete, I curled back up in bed and allowed the waves of fatigue to gently crash me upon the soft shores of sleep (come back to me later, I can do a better analogy, I swear).  

November 19, 2023 - Dax

After sleeping in, I put on a pot of coffee and sorted through a surprising number emails and messages.  My original plan today was to rendre une visite at the office of tourism, but it turns out that it's closed on Sundays 🤷‍♂️.  Still, I wasn't going to let that stop me, I'd do a tour de la ville moi même: it was a warm, sunny day and I'd have plenty of time to explore the city on foot during the daytime.  So with that, I finished my coffee, applied my crême solaire, filled a water bottle, and set off for le centre-ville de Dax!

I'd woken up one morning to hearing either a woman die screaming or these chickens across the street.  Once I stopped in front of them, they were very eager to come close, I suppose in hopes that I'd have scraps for them.

So they do have a Royale with Cheese!!!

The SNCF train station is about a 10-15 minute walk from my apartment, I'll definitely need to take advantage of it for a couple weekend trips further away.

Definitely a different Bayonne than the one near Jersey City...

I wonder if it's still in business: so long as there are feathers, I suppose people need duvets.

The Adour river (ring any bells?) runs through Dax.  Just across the Arena Bridge lies a (drum roll, please)... an arena!  

Per the AIGP Process Engineer, there's a tradition of bull fighting in the Basque country and Southwest of France - though he says around here (at least in modern times) there's less stabbing of bulls and more acrobatics over them.  This calls to mind a small booklet we read in French II, I believe it was titled "Vive le tauro"; maaaaaaybe that book was set in this region?

The other big thing here in Dax appears to be hot springs and bathing.  Something about water and well being

I was wondering what was atop that ancient wall, and how these trees took on such a strange appearance.  Turns out its a parking lot and cause people made them do it?  BTW, this wall seems to mark the border of the centreville.

Yay, a university focused on hyrdrotherapy?  

A carousel!  

I believe there is a board game (un jeu de societé) called Dixit, but in this case, I believe the "Dix" here refers to dice.

The main attraction in the central square; it was hard for the camera to pick it up, but the water is hot.

A cathedral providing shade to a square with a sculpture and plaque

Roughly translated: A Roman legionary garrisoned in Dax leaving for war in Spain threw his old arthritic dog into the Adour river.  Upon his return, he was excitedly greeted by his dog.  The hot spring banks of the river where the dog washed up had accomplished a miracle!  The news spread to Rome and Emperor Julius Augustus gave his blessing to make use of the waters.  The hot spring city of Dax was born"

Aside from the whole trying to kill his dog thing, a touching story!

I find it interesting that some plants have taken hold up on the belfry

I took lunch at this station in Les Halles de Dax.  This building was more modern than Les Halles de Biarritz, but I was still overwhelmed with choices.

I picked something on the menu that sounded interesting, even if I didn't exactly know what it was: les coquilletes de tonton.  This place claimed to be peddling appellation certified truffles (les truffes) so maybe I'd be in for a mushroomy meal.  Imagine my surprise when they came out with literal mac and cheese.  I suppose little macaronis are kinda like small shells...

I'll have to spend a post later discussing architecture (even though I'm in no way qualified to do so), but I took this pic to illustrate that despite the weather being dry and sunny, there's definitely plenty of precipitation happening around here.

They sure do like their bamboo around here, it's been showing up in a lot of yards and places...

A roundabout bisected by a rail

Some sort of aquatic center or water park in Dax?  I think it's closed for the season.

I'd been hearing rustling in the leaves.  These little guys are super skittish but not very quiet about it.

Popping his little head out to say hello.

A helicopter in the roundabout closest to the Helicopter Museum of Dax!

I'm sensing a recurring theme of things being closed on Sundays...

And I guess there's either a hobby air strip for small aircraft (I'd seen a few low flying planes earlier) or it's part of the military base just next to the helicopter museum?

A pizza kiosk!  The future is NOW

I thought this house looked cute and idyllic and it stood out from many of the other houses I saw

After making the long trek back along the Adour to my apartment, I settled in for a relaxed evening (net trek today was just shy of 10 miles).  Instead of going out for dinner, I stayed in and made use of my groceries.  Tonight was merguez sausage with bread and (since the endives are on the list for possible foodborne illness candidates) overly stir fried endive 😅

It's official: Week #1 of my stay in France is complete.  Aside from a bout of illness, I'd say I'm having a great time and things are going well.  Let's see what the work week brings, many other people are flying in from Geneva this week to meet on site!