We squeezed in one more tourist stop, the Gulbenkian Museum. This has a nice mixture of cultural arts ranging from paintings, furniture, sculptures, pottery and more. I think Peter likes these museums better than just painting museums.

We took a 4pm train to Bordeaux, France. This was an extremely long train….4pm-7am….hahahahha. Since it was a night train we booked a couchette but there were two other people in our cabin, one man from Africa and a lady from Brazil. Funny thing was the man only spoke French and Portuguese and the girl only spoke Portuguese, a little French and a little Spanish. Neither spoke English. It was interesting trying to communicate. We broke out a bottle of wine and then we all went to dinner and drank some more. It’s surprising how much you can understand when you can’t really communicate.

At dinner we all drew maps pointing to which cities we were from and where we live currently. It was an interesting map to say the least. We also met a woman at dinner from the Canary Islands; she spoke 5 languages….shish.

Arrived on the border of France 7am and switched trains and arrived in Bordeaux at 10:30 am…..we were so tired. It’s hard to sleep on a train….to much jerking, plus Peter and the other guy took turns snoring…hahahah. Good thing I had ear plugs.

We found a place to stay right by the train station…it’s nice and has a bad ass shower. Hey, it’s the little things that count.

We explored the city, set up a vineyard visit for the next day, did a wine tasting at a wine store (bought a few bottles too), and went to a carnival in the city center. Peter and I rode the Ferris wheel. I haven’t ridden one in a loooong time.

We met some French people who asked if we were Americans after they heard us speak….I braced myself for something rude and was surprised to find that they were excited and asked us where we were from etc. etc. Odd…not what I expected in the least.

Parts of this city remind me of New Orleans…the river for one looks like the Mississippi river…muddy and churning. If you squint the horizon looks like New Orleans on the river walk.