Biarittz 3/27-3/29

Day 2 in Biarritz
I slowly wake up and considering climbing off my mountain top bunk and taking a shower. I wait 10 minutes and then hear the rest of my roomates are stirring around. No! they´ll get in the shower first! They don´t have a five minute climb ahead of them. They can just hop out of bed. It´s a usual delima in hostel rooms with one shared bathroom. If you wait, you could end up waiting 45 minutes while Claudette washes her hair and does her makeup, as you forget about ever wanting to be clean again, as long as you can use the toilet in the next half hour. preferably next 5 minutes. I get my breakfast of tea, apple, orange, and mini baugette. what a nice breakfast. I had had it with toast and jam and cereal I wasn´t going to eat. Nutrients! I walk past the lake on a lovely path and am soon met with the desision to take the long way (that I took the night before) that gives you a sidewalk, or the short way that has you ducking away from cars on a windy forest road. Melissa, my confident kiwi roommate, comes down the path. We decide we are cool with hanging out for awhile and we brave the short way together. Melissa is 30, has lived and worked in the uk for 5 years, and had a week vacation ( you get 5 weeks in europe, uk. 5!) and had found a cheap flight to biarittz-bordeax. We have a nice talk on the way into town. It´s been two or three hours, and I am wanting to stop and hug the spindly fairy tale trees and sit on the stone decorated benches. Melissa is craving coffee that she wants to drink by the sea, and after walking around the touristy part (fancy, expensive, pastel colored gallerys and dressshops) we find ourselves at a inland intersection. We trust Melissa´s sense of direction this time and get to a large beach. after days of bread and water, I test the waters and I have the tastiest crepe in the world with whipped cream. Melissa wants to read, I want to go to the cemetary I saw from the bus the day before. We split up with a "if you´re at this spot at 4 and want to grab a bit to eat together, that´s cool. If not, that´s cool to." agreement. I make my way to the cemetary on the map. I like Biarritz. I feel completly safe here. Thta is until I notice all the little salamanders that dart back into the bushes when I would walk by. I can handle mice, crickets, some spiders.... but if something is little and foriegn to me, I just assume it´s poisoness and it scares the heck out of me. One after the other kept skittering away and I swore if one jumped on my face I would scream and scream. Not the most sensible approach. Looking back, I know I should have vowed to remain calm and quickly pick it off me, and if bit and feeling ill, signal/call for help. But at the time I was on very narrow sidewalks and surrounded by salamander infested hedges, so I didn´t think of it. I try to think about things other than salamanders biting my nose. There is one thing kind of bothering me. I have my drawing pencils. I have my sketchbook. But if I see something I like, I´d much rather just snap a picture than spend an hour or five recording it. This whole artist argument with myself never ends. I don´t know if it doesn´t make me an artist, but it might make me a lazy one. bah. so tired of this debate. I get to the cemetary and It´s not quite how I remember it from the bus. It´s huge. Most of them have ceramic decoration sitting on the grave. I realize if I´m going to make my not-agreement for 4oclock maybe lunch I better turn back. On the way I find the cemetary I saw the day before. This one is cute and lovely. Though it´s so sunny, it doesn´t give off the same feeling it did before. I kind of hope Melissa isn´t there because I really want to slowly walk on the seawall. My wish is granted, but I am pleased with myself for being there right at 4, so I get a strawberry icecream cone and watch the waves and the brave kids playing in them. I reach a conclusion on the artist debate. There´s all kinds of artists. Maybe I´ll never have the paitence or desire to labourously sketch out a landscape or perfectly capture a window. But I would like to capture the feeling of a girl in a red shirt playing in the waves. Or to frame two friends holding their shoes, screaming together when the cold water splashes over them. I finish my cone and walk along the sea wall. Biarritz seems set up to be a nightmare in the summer. Benches and lookouts are verywhere. But on a sunny spring day, it´s amazing. High cliffs, wild sea, little flowers and hedges dotted all over the hillside. 500 benches to choose from.

Man, this walk seems to be taking a lot longer than it did this morning. I´ve been walking (not getting lost) for almost 2 hours now and I´m still only halfway there. But my spirits are lifted when I see, shining in the sun, A french supermarket. A supermarket!
How I love supermarkets. I hurry in and am immediatly met with rows and rows of 1-4 euro bottles of wine. I cry, my stomach isn´t ready yet. 1 euro bottles of wine! oh come on. I let you have that crepe with wipped cream today. AND the icecream cone. I think I´m being very nice. Just wait a week, then you can sip some wine. No chocolate for as long as you live though. No, I agree with you about the chocolate stomach, I´m not really desiring it at all. Which I know I should feel sad about. I can´t believe I´ve developed taste adversion to chocolate. Though I don´t feel too sad. And even if I don´t have an adversion, I´m just going to let myself think I do. It is going to save me a lot of health delimas and money.

I get a large package of seasoned precooked cous'cous (1.2!), strawberrys (.75!), a package of pistachios (1.50 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), a can of delicious french green beans (.30!!) a can of garbonzo beans (.30). Supermarkets rock! I also get a razor and floss (not quite as much a steal, 3 euros each, but I need them. forgot to pack razor and lost floss in midst of my sickness). I walk the rest of the hour eating my couscous with my hands.