78 - La Vie Biarrotte - Biarritz

Monday, May 27

I spent most the work day looking into arrangements through the end of my stay in France; which meant I basically figured out the rough itinerary and dates for my vacation at the end of June.  With the skeleton of a where and when figured out, I'll reach out to a few connections I've made for suggestions about specific towns and visits; plus I can confidently reserve my apartment and rental car here in Biarritz and have my trans-atlantic flight changed to match the actual airport I'll be closest to at the end of the vacation.  

At lunch, I sat with Nicole again.  She told me about a modern amusement park about 3-4 hours north of here called the Futureascope.  She also joked about her new haircut as a Jean d'Arc; she'd received it from her daughter (une coiffeuse) yesterday during European Mother's Day (La fête de mere).  

The waves on the Grande Plage were acting funny today: the back wash was colliding with the waves resulting in a long slow unfurling of mousse along the length of the beach.  

With the sky so clear, I profited by enjoying dinner at the roof top of Olatua, the restaurant situated atop the aquarium.  

There's been very few clear evenings since I've been checking the Biarrote horizon; it was a pleasant surprise to get the little flash of green from the sun in the last moment before it ducked under the water.  

Un verre blanc moeulleux et un coucher de soleil doux 

Even after the sun has gone down, some people were enjoying the pleasant beach weather by the spot lights of the casino

Tuesday, May 28

Not a busy day but one spent in the control room watching over the latest batch; I've been saying this for a while now but I really think we're close to having all the parameters sorted out and not babysitting the reactors.  

At lunchtime, a few people from corporate came on-site; they were bringing an LED torch to the company's French sites to get photos for the homepage in preparation for the Olympic Games.  It's a fun little thing to have done given how rare the occasion is.  

I made my way to the beach after work to sun bathe.  It wasn't quite warm enough to swim and the waves were a little rougher than I would have liked; so while I was psyching myself up to get into the water, I ultimately decided not to go in.  That being said, there was a practice of the sauveteurs going on and they seemed completely undaunted by the water conditions in their wetsuits.

I wasn't the only person looking to enjoy the beach this evening; plenty of other bronzés were about.  AFTER taking this photo, a young woman sat down about 10 ft from me and took her top off to tan.  I gotta come to the beach more often...

The lifguards / sauveteurs of Biarritz had a training session going on that was basically running the length of the beach, then swimming out past a couple of buoys placed in the sea.  Given how rough the waves were at time, that must be exhausting.  

The walk back from the beach included some nice views of the surrounding mountains; and a few fishermen

Working my way along the water from the Little Beach to La Grande Plage, the waves were sweeping this little bit of sand next to the port.  

Between my dinner and dessert course at Bouillon Hortense, I stepped outside to observe the sunset; it's interesting that the concept of stepping outside during a meal is just so commonplace here (primarily for smoke breaks)

For dessert: cérises à l'eau de vie.  I'm not sure which spirit it is but it tasted like cherries by the end of the cup 🥴

Wednesday, May 29

Lunch with Nicole was nice again; she'll be traveling for the next week but I feel I learned more from a conversation with than any 15 minutes of DuoLingo I've done at lunch.  She got a good chuckle from my beach story.  She also mentioned a hiking area I've visited, called les Pas de Roland (Roland's Steps).  At the time, I hadn't thought anything of it, but a bit of online research reveal's Roland was kinda a big deal being a paladin of Charlemagne and wielder of the legendary sword, Durandal.  I'm not well read on my Charelemagne mythos but I'm familiar with the sword name of Durandal used in so many, many RPGs.  

Dinner was near les halles at a place called les contrabandiers.  I liked how the menu was (I think) broken up into sections pertaining to smuggling.  It was definitely a tapas place; the French seem to do pintxos more like tapas or their own style vs what I've seen in Spain.  

Back of the pig, or under the jacket, or a marine ride, or the border crossing, or a hiding spot

The Jambon de Bayonne is served as an impressive display, I hadn't realized what a "douelle"was

Just to jete un coup d'oeil à la côte des Basques

Thursday, May 30

Not too much to report about at work, things went about as smooth as could be expected and we'll await results tomorrow.  It's dawned on me that I've spent 5 months here but I don't have everyone's name memorized 😅.  It's not like I see all the operator's everyday but I think some of the mechanics have reverted to vouvoie me because I don't know their names.  Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems the French put emphasis on greeting a person with their name.  It's always, "bonjour, John", hardly ever simply "salut"; then there's me, who at this point is too embarrassed to ask about their name again: "bonjour!  Ça va?"

I remember once saying, "merci, monsieur" to a coworker and they feigned a stab to the art.  Maybe that's simply a cultural difference, cause I feel it's perfectly normal to say "thank you, sir" to a colleague in the US of A.

Back in Biarritz, I packed up the apartment and loaded the suitcases into the car trunk.  The space is so tight, I pulled the car forward to stow les valises before reparking.  After, I went for a walk towards the lighthouse but found my route barred due to filming for an action movie.  Sure enough, I caught a glimpse of a van zooming up the hill with someone clinging to the side and then hearing shots.  

Dinner was revisiting a place from last week.  The serveuse had told me last time that she was super proud of her bottle of Pimm's and was trying to popularize it here, so I indulged her whimsy and ordered a Pimm's champagne cocktail to go with my pig (she learned the word "trotters" from some Australians in the past week) feet.  

The beach was looking much calmer this evening, at least, calm enough for the surfers to use

I'd tried ascending to the light house but found my route barred due to the filming, so that forced me to snake my way along the various stair cases along the Miramar beach.  It's a quieter part of the beach but quite nice.  

The serveusse had learned the term "pork trotter" from an Australian customer earlier in the week.  This entrée was a pork trotter deconstructed, then breaded and fried.  

Friday, May 31

Castets is celebrating this weekend the relationship (un jumelage) with their sister city in Spain, Fustiñana

The new apartment is an interesting complement to the one I just vacated.  Where the previous apartment was in a large complex, this one is in a small, unassuming building; a narrow kitchen traded for an open kitchen/salon, and I'm losing several balconies by my windows are more private now.  So it's not an upgrade nor downgrade, simply different.  The neighborhood is different and I'm a few minutes further from the beach but that's not really an issue when the difference 2 minutes vs 5 😂  I didn't spend too much time in the evening getting acquainted with the place because I had other evening plans.

I had been invited by a couple people I'd met at dinner last week to celebrate a birthday along with several other people they'd met.  Turns out their quite the social butterflies because the group of 10 people at the bar all only tangentially knew the couple and most for not particularly long 😂.  The place was the "Epic" Rooftop bar situated at the base of the Basque Coast and we got a really nice sunset there.  

It was an interesting experience to meet some new people and was good conversational practice; even if it did sort of remind me of the first day of college 🤣  At midnight, the bar closed and I opted to return to bed rather than continue on at the next bar/club.  I was added to a group WhatsApp group, so here's hoping to see some more of these folks in the coming weeks.    

The walk to la cote des Basques took me less time than anticipated and I ended up being the 2nd person there.  First arrivals were a couple of Americans and then 20 minutes later the French started to trickle in 😆 

The guy who'd invited me had joked that they knew the best sunset viewing spot, the joke is that the best spot is wherever they are.  But there might be some sageness to that attitude too 🤔 

While talking with people at the bar, there were a few furry friends milling about too.