Toulouse, Part II: ROCK the boat

Are you ready to ROCK...with bunnies?!?!

So, about that boat. Turns out it's really a permanent music venue.

While a canal boat (Cri de la Mouette) is certainly an unusual location for a rock show featuring four bands (plus DJs), Jefe didn't think too much of it. Canal boats used as houses, restaurants, and bars are not so uncommon in certain places (Amsterdam especially, but also Paris). And while the outside looked a little grungy, the name matched, and the gangplank was sporting the same poster we'd seen, so it must be the place. Another reassuring sign (depending on how you look at it): the canal seemed pretty stagnant and shallow, so it didn't look like the boat was going anywhere.

Armed with this news, we rendez-vous'ed at the Cinema Utopia for Idiots and Angels, an animated film by George Plympton. It was without dialogue or embellishment, and was very well done. The underlying question to the audience is "What if you didn't get to choose whether you or not you do good?"

be good, dammit

Post-film and craving some spicy food, we were off to Baan Siam, a Thai restaurant Rebecca found on the internet (the guidebook, and even local publications, are completely devoid of information about Asian and Indian restaurants). While it was nearly empty when we got there, the waiter wanted to make sure we would finish in an hour as they were fully reserved starting at 9pm. I guess that's a good sign. We asked for our dishes très très piquant (very, very spicy) and were a little more than surprised to actually receive them that way. Jefe was sweating and blowing his nose from the hot peppers (just the way he likes it). We finished with some coffee ice cream to soothe our deliciously tortured tongues.

Leaving the restaurant, we were a little worried about being late for the start of the show and that the tiny canal boat would already be at capacity. Upon arriving, we learned that we couldn't board because the show wouldn't start for another hour (although we had some suspicions that we were turned away on the grounds of not being sufficiently hip). So we walked down the street (to a more upscale establishment) for a drink while we waited for the cool kids to decide that the magic hour had arrived and we could give them our money and come aboard. After the waiting-drink, we checked back, and saw there were still people loitering outside the boat. Since the show apparently still hadn't started, and since we had perhaps already been deemed not cool enough to enter when it did, we headed to a more distant bar to bide our time until the doormen were too stoned to care who they let in.

At some point while we were killing time, we found (to some surprise) our mysterious aquatic venue listed in not one but both guidebooks. Perhaps this was a legitimate operation after all, and not merely some squat turned music venue that required a certain haircut for entry. Reenergized, we turned around and made it inside in time to catch the first act, The Pumplies. Needless to say we were surprised. Not only was the music good (most of it awesome even), there was alcohol and bathrooms (that the awesome musicians occasionally puked in). So we ended up staying for all the bands. There was only one dud in the bunch (perhaps because, unlike the other bands, they lacked a female member), Wild Women and the Savages, which reminded us of the SNL spoof show Sprockets. However, the (male) guitar player was wearing a button-down suede mini dress, no underwear (steep stairs...you get the picture), and a lighted sign on his chest ("WW" for Wild Women), and the singer was wearing a Lucha Libre mask, so we tried to forgive them their musical shortcomings.

AWESOME BAND PICTURE

(Cristal Palace featuring singer reminiscent of 90's era Courtney Love and Ian Curtis)

NOT-SO AWESOME BAND PICTURE

(Wild Women and the Savages)

Edward Cullen+Samantha Ronson lookalike playing keyboards in Bogart and the Addictives

All in all, a great couple of days in Toulouse dodging some pretty nasty weather. Thanks to a combination of a guidebook or two, the internet, and a little luck.

Toulouse, Part I: Evacuation Plan

Yes, the weather is terrible. "Violent wind, DANGER, risk of falling branches."

Our trip to Toulouse was another excellent illustration of the complexity of navigating a new place. You may recall a previous post, in which we discussed the pros and cons of relying on local publications versus established guidebooks. In that post, it's possible that we may have overemphasized the value of local guides. In fact, what we should have suggested is that reliance on a single form of travel guidance is not much better than using none at all.

We arrived in Toulouse on Thursday afternoon (Le Routard guide in hand). Once we got to the hotel, we also had the advantage of internet access (which we didn't have in Bordeaux). Et puis, it took Jefe only about four hours to find Let's Motiv, the local (free) toulousian guide, which became the third prong of our navigational apparatus.

third prong--100th edition of Let's Motiv

One of the first, and in many ways, best finds in Toulouse was thanks to Let's Motiv. El Chivito del Léo may look like a shack, but the Argentian tacos, sandwiches, empanadas, & cetera were so good that we went back two days later for more. And people who have been to Spain would appreciate the availability of San Miguel, which is, in Jefe's opinion, the best cheap beer in the world.

The next day, on the suggestion of Le Routarde, we went to the Marché Victor Hugo; the guide mentioned that the restaurants located on the upper level of the market were very good for lunch ("Get there early, or late, or prepare to wait," it said). What the guidebook didn't say was that in order to get to the restaurants, you have to go through a fire door, ride in an elevator of death (some graffiti on the inside warned that pushing on the door while in transit would cause it to spontaneously open) and walk down a spartan hallway. In fact, the only clue we were on the right track was this placard of the evacuation procedure noting the location of us and the nearby restaurants.

Vous êtes ici

Once we found them, everything went well. We walked through all the restaurants (since they lack separating walls, this is a little awkward, and the only way to tell them apart is their chosen color scheme) and finally chose Attila, which specializes in seafood. We had dorade carpaccio, shrimp risotto (unbelievably good, I think it may have had veal stock in it), and three small filets of different kinds of fish fresh from the market below. Don't forget the crème brûlée, mousse au chocolat, a little wine, and two p'tits cafes all for a reasonable price.

After lunch, Jefe went to Les Abbatoirs (the contemporary art museum, which had an exhibit by Antonio Saura, a series of paintings reinterpreting the Pinoccio story, and more abstract art),

Crucifixion by Antonio Saura

and Rebecca went in search of vintage clothing, books, and perhaps a small suitcase for our increasingly frequent train excursions. Just before separating, as we were walking off our wine, we noticed this unusual poster and took a picture (we'd recommend this to those of you who travel with a digital camera; it's often easier than writing stuff down, and you can avoid misspellings and incorrect times/dates).

It tooks us a few minutes to decode the alternating color typeface. The difficulty in telling where words begin and end (is that Cride la Mouette or Cri de la Mouette?) caused the ensuing internet search to take a little longer.

After the museum, Jefe looked up the address of the venue, Cri de la Mouette, on the internet. The address listed on Google was merely a street with no number (Allée de Barcelone), and so Jefe went to check it out to avoid prolonged wandering in the dark later. What he found was this:

is that...a boat?

to be continued...

Bordeaux, Part II: Vélo F***ing Sutra

To enrich our wanderings in the center of Bordeaux beyond shopping the thousands of post-holiday sales, we went in search of some contemporary art. There were a few spaces showing this kind of art in the center of Bordeaux, most notably the Espace St. Remi. Formerly a church, it has been converted into a space for showing contemporary paintings and sculptures

Jefe found it accidently while he was looking for a place to lock his bike near the hotel one afternoon. We passed the church/art gallery and immediately found ourselves in a quiet square, deserted except for a few middle aged women, each separated by 30 or 40 feet, sitting on chairs on the sidewalks with thigh-high, white, high-heeled boots (these are apparently the newest component of the national prostitute uniform this year, which we noticed in Poitiers). The art inside was almost as strange as the scene outside.

Apart from the Espace St. Remi, the center of Bordeaux is too expensive for emerging artists and they are forced to stay in nearby Eysine or the industrial area of Bègles. These side trips wouldn't be so bad, if it weren't for the ever-present rain. Oh well. So Jefe biked among semi-trailers and warehouses of Bègles to La Morue Noire for an exhibit by Frédéric Lucas. This sculpture garden was outside:
Inside the building were the paintings. Lucas uses an interesting technique; up close it looks like layers of peeling paint, but from a distance various forms are discernible among the chaos.

Sort of the urban/street version of a Monet.

Since this blog is about bikes and art, among other things, I have to mention a series of comics by Cami that were exhibited at the Maison du Vélo, Bordeaux's headquarters for bike rentals (only to residents, unfortunately), maps, and information.

Yes, that says Velo Sutra

Don't laugh too hard.  We did, until we actually saw some of these positions in action, at night, in the rain.  Pretty scary.

As anyone familiar with us should know, we visited all the local movie theaters. On the Place Camille Julian, there was Cinema Utopia, two screens and a cafe/bar in a converted church (a theme in Bordeaux?), where we saw Che: Part One. Also UGC Ciné Cité in the center of Bordeaux (where we saw Twilight and Slumdog Millionaire), and Cinema Festival in Bègles, kind of a hike, but worth it to see 20th Century Boys.

And while we like the combination of dinner and a movie more than the average couple, we have other interests too, notably live music. Champaign-Urbana has a very active music scene for a town its size (some of our favorite acts of recent years: The Beauty Shop, The Living Blue, Bellcaster, Animate Objects,  Headlights, Kate Hathaway, Darrin Drda's Theory of Everything, Triple Whip, and the list goes on). Needless to say, we jumped at the chance to see Calexico in Bordeaux at the Barbey Rock School. Apparently, so did a lot of other Bordelais, as the 700 seat venue was nearly full.

Pre-show, before most of the people finished their beers and coffees in the lobby.

Luckily, we got there early and were able to stand right near the stage.

They played for nearly two hours, and everyone (fans, band, us) was pretty exhausted by the end.  But Rebecca was sublimely happy.  She saw Calexico in a small outside venue in NYC a few years back, and this show brought back a lot of happy memories.

Bordeaux, Part I: Finest Food in Finest Town (?)

follow the wet cobblestones

In this, only our second francophone foray from Poitiers, we headed south to Bordeaux and Toulouse. Since both are fairly large and populous, and because we had never visited either place before, we did get guides (in French) for the two cities.

Really, a guidebook is just a starting point, something that you can use for the first day or so (maybe even just the first 4-6 hours). We feel the need to stress this point. The guidebook should be a handhold to use only until you get your hands on some local publications that will give you the lowdown on the currently hot restaurants, music venus, movies, art exhibits, and which may even warn you of an upcoming manif (slang for manifestation nf. 1. a protest, sometimes in conjunction with a strike or grève; 2. the national sport of France; 3. something you should know about before traveling).

Finding local reviews of what's going on is probably the most underrated travel-related activity. Guidebooks are ok for finding all the 1000+ year-old churches, but they aren't going to know about the organic Thai restaurant that just opened (or the little old theatre that just shut down). And if the locals aren't that into spicy organic food (a good bet around here), it may well be closed by the time the next edition of Lonely Planet comes out. This means that you, the traveler, have a responsibility to venture outside the safe confines of the published guidebook, which you should consider out-of-date and out-of-touch even before you spotted it on the bookshelf.

There is a reason the local publications review art, restaurants, movies, and fashion--locals want to know about this stuff too! In larger cities, local publications (for instance, Pariscope in Paris, The Reader in Chicago, Spirit in Bordeaux, or Let's Motiv if you're in Toulouse) give those out-of-the-way, non-corporate, and newly-opened, but still solid establishments a fighting chance against the overpriced robo-bistrots in the tourist district.

Enough of our hipster politics. 

So anyway, after our apartment almost burned down, we hopped on the TGV in Poitiers and were in Bordeaux in two hours, a short tram ride later, we were at our hotel. We'll never get over the ease of transferring from one form of transport to another here (TGV to bus/metro, airplane to TGV/bus/metro).  You know that feeling you get when you have to walk the five blocks from Chicago's Union Station to the nearest El stop dragging two suitcases in the snow? Well, not here!

In the middle of a vast network of streets for pedestrians and bikes only, we were surrounded by restaurants and boutiques. We found a great breakfast/lunch spot, Karl Restaurant, around the corner from our hotel.  

Karl--"Finest food in finest town"

Located in the Place du Parlement, the interior is very airy and the sun shines in the windows in the afternoon (well, theoretically.  If the sun ever shines in Bordeaux). 

It was also a fun people-watching venue.  For instance, we watched this mother (picture to the left) tying her baby to a chair with her designer scarf.  It's hard to imagine a mother doing this in the US.  It might even be illegal.   It was very chic, but it didn't last long (baby was relocated to dad's arms, scarf returned to mother's shoulders).

If you make it to Karl's, don't forget to visit Cousin et Compagnie, the caviste across the street (their motto is: The importance of a wine shop? That it stays open! --W.C. Fields), where we got this excellent and very wine/cheese/bread-appropriate wine...

Other good food finds were Bar-Cave de la Monnaie (classic-cosy french) and Occitane Cafe on the Place du Palais, classic french, but cheap, and more lunch-appropriate.

While in Bordeaux, don't forget to get a glass of Lillet in between meals, while shopping, or in between art exhibits.

Recent Story in Local Paper May Interest ARAD Readers

The Meter Explodes: Smoke Fills the Boutique!

Just yesterday, a washing machine almost put the Patrice Bréal boutique on a diet. During the height of the post-Christmas sales season, the clothing shop in Poitiers was hit by a small catastrophe.

It was 2:50pm when the fire department was alerted. The fire started in the closet situated at the back of the store. A few seconds later, the electric meter exploded, spreading fire and panic throughout the shop.

As the smoke spread, the two sales assistants were forced to evacuate the store. The apartments above the shop, as well as neighboring stores, were also evacuated. The firemen, after putting out the fire, checked the nearby apartments for smoke damage and carbon monoxide levels. Using a thermal camera, they were able to ensure that no hot spots remained. A few hours later, the mayor stopped by the scene.

translated from La Nouvelle Republique page 4 article, published Samedi 17, Janvier 2009

-------
Okay, now here's how it happened from our perspective.

Jefe had gone out for a long bike ride. Rebecca was a home, writing. She heard the doorbell ring, but since this happens by accident every once in a while (drunk people, kids, confused delivery men), she didn't take it very seriously. A few minutes later, the bell rang again, more insistently. She opened the French windows to look down to the street, to see who was bothering her. No delivery man, no drunks, no kids. But something did seem amiss... Usually, when we look out our window, we feel a bit like voyeurs. People walk past on the pedestrian street below, not noticing us and not looking up. This time, people were looking up.

Rebecca mused over this as she shut the windows and sat down again at the computer. A moment later, the electricity in the apartment went out all at once. She slipped on her shoes, pushed open the door to the stairwell, and was greeted with a lot of smoke and the smell of burning plastic, which grew thicker as she ran down the stairs. At the base of the stairs it was very hot, and she looked down to see the door of the utility closet glowing orange. When she made it out of the ground level door and into the street, women in the adjacent shoe store were vigorously motioning to her. She walked up to them, confused, and they turned her around and pointed to the fire.

She spent a nervous hour waiting for the fire department to arrive, put out the fire, and rid the apartment building of smoke. Thankfully, there was no permanent damage to the apartment or its residents (aside from a little smoke damage to the level below us)!

In the mean time, don't worry about us.  We're on vacation.