In Which I Repeatedly Attempt to Buy a Sandwich

First I would like to update you all on the smoke detector irritation.  When I returned to my room this afternoon at about 3:30pm it was still going off (so that's like two days straight pretty much), and I received a text from Celine (from when I was without internet) about it:

I think at this point, if the owner of the apartment was anywhere near here they would have heard the stupid thing.  If you're on the street outside of our building you can hear it--and much louder than in my room.

But as of about 4:30 when I was eating my sandwich (more about that later), I couldn't hear the alarm anymore, so someone must have come and shut it off which is awesome.












So last night I planned out where I wanted to explore today, which was over by the river, but kind of in the same neighborhood as the Monoprix I went to yesterday.  This was supposed to be a double-whammy kind of a trip where not only did I get to see the river, but I got to go to a store that would hopefully sell me a journal, unlike the Librairie Mollat which was too enormous for its own good.

My phone wanted me to take like 20 different roads to get there, when clearly on the map I could see that I only needed to take three.  So once I left the apartment I just went straight until I ran out of road, and then I turned right until I ran out of road on that street, and then I turned left and supposedly that would take me to the store.

I was quite correct in that this was an efficient way to get where I was going, but I realize why maybe my phone didn't want me to go this way.  Going straight out from my street (basically, the road is like 20 ft to the right of mine) is kind of creepy and alley-esque and maybe I should have followed the instructions instead.  But I persevered, and I got to the river.  I even took a super quality picture for you guys:

It's kind of brown and gross and  I didn't cross the bridge to take a better picture because I didn't feel like it at the time.  Maybe some other day.

I walked around this road to the river and my phone was telling me that I was going the right direction towards this store.

But then I ended up at Place de la Bourse which is exactly where my store was supposed to be, but it was nowhere to be found.

As I learned today, nearly everything closes on Sundays.

I think my store may have been in this bigger building that had big gates down over all the entrances. To make sure this trip hadn't been a waste, I also took a picture of the statue in this square.

 I don't know what the statue is of, and though I did end up getting closer to it to walk toward the building behind it (the one I think my store was in) I didn't take any more pictures.

I like this one because that woman is holding her foot up for some reason and I really like that I didn't notice her at the time when I was taking this picture.

If you couldn't tell, I am practicing uploading pictures because I downloaded dropbox so I don't have to struggle with getting pictures off my phone anymore like I always do.

The internet pretends it's soooooo easy but they are lying to you.






Anyways, to the sandwiches--almost.  I made an executive decision that from here I would walk to the Monoprix again and maybe get some food and definitely a shower curtain that I need for my apartment.  I walked through some touristy bits of town and thought about getting ice cream, but I didn't do it because I'm clearly a fool.  I did buy a canelé on the way over there.  The woman gave me like 12000 different options and I didn't understand them so I told her I wanted a traditional one.  What she gave me was like a mountain thing that was kind of chewy.  It was tasty but it made me want some water, which I obviously did not have because I was at least a mile away from my apartment.

Next to the canelé place was a Paul which is like a sandwich and pastry place, but because I do not have forethought, I was like "no I'll buy my sandwich at the other Paul after I get to the Monoprix."

Sara: 0   Sandwich: 1

I walked toward the Monoprix, but I discovered that since it's Sunday, every single thing is closed, including the mall--which kind of makes sense.  So I could not buy a sandwich at the Monoprix, or a shower curtain.

Sara: 0   Sandwich: 2

Right next to the Monoprix was another Paul, which I knew about.  It was closed.

Sara: 0   Sandwich: 3

From the Monoprix I decided to just take Cours Pasteur all the way back to my apartment and hopefully the Brioche Doree would be open on Place de la Victoire.

On the way back, there are two grocery-store-ish-things that I went into yesterday.  Both of them were closed so I could not buy a sandwich at either place.  One of them closed at 1pm, which was nearly when I got up today.  Lesson learned, Bordeaux.  Wake up before noon or no sandwich.

Sara: 0   Sandwich: 5

The Brioche Doree where I bought my sandwich yesterday at Victoire was also closed.

Sara: 0   Sandwich: 6

I looked at the map on my phone and I zoomed in a lot so it would show me food places around the square.  There was a taco place, and I voted that taco places wouldn't take the Sabbath off.  On my way to get tacos, however, I found an open sandwich shop!  It was called Tricolor and it also made kebabs.  But the picture of a kebab was just a different kind of sandwich, it was nothing about being on a stick.

It think the tricolor name was maybe supposed to represent the French flag because it was like a sporty deli where they have TVs with soccer on and things.  I bought a sandwich and a Fanta, and I had to stand and wait while the guy made it.

Sara: 1   Sandwich: 6

I brought the sandwich and the Fanta back to my incredibly hot and smoke alarm sounding apartment.

Because I am basically an engineer, I realized that if I moved my fan to the other side of the room so it faced the bed, that I would actually feel the air from the fan.  It was ingenious and I am pretty darn proud of myself for figuring that out.

The sandwich, even in my now cooled room, was not actually very good.  But I ate it anyways.

Tomorrow I'm going to set an alarm to wake up in the morning time so that I can maybe be ready to meet up with actual people on Tuesday morning for class.