There is so little hoo haa about crossing borders in Europe. As an Australian we’re used to multiple hours of plane travel, airports, visas, injections, passport control and palaver as a part of being in another country. On the bus from San Sebastian to Biarritz we only knew we had crossed the boarder into France when our phones sent us updated roaming charges due to changing country. ‘Huh,’ said Bear, ‘We’re in France’.
Jesus fuck remember how incredible it seemed crossing the Murray River and seeing a sign telling us we were no longer in Victoria but now in fucking NEW SOUTH WALES? We’d peer around rubber necked and blinking noting the people looked the same but the licence plates on the cars, the flavored milk brands and the chemist names were different? I was 10 when we went on school camp to Swan Hill and crossed the border into NSW. It was like visiting Narnia. I was certain I ‘felt’ different and the people looked ‘not like us.’ We had to be super careful not to accidently leave an apple in our bags on the way back over the boarder to Victoria because we may inadvertently destroy the entire agricultural system of Australia. WHAT THE FUCK IS FRUIT FLY?
A mate has a story about being a young backpacker 25 years ago in Switzerland driving around with a group of yahoos trying to find a party. They were lost so went into a shop to ask directions only to be told they were actually in Italy not Switzerland. IMAGINE TAKING A WRONG TURN AND BEING IN ANOTHER COUNTRY! NO I FUCKING CAN’T.
We arrived in Biarritz 1ish. I’d never hear of Biarritz before, it was Jess’s idea and to be honest I just go along with anything she suggests because she is a fucking genius. Biarritz. I liked it because it was ‘It’s beer’ backwards. Kinda. Well it’s Biarritz in the way Yoda would say it.
I once spent a week with my mate Caitlin and our seven kids in a place called Toora simply because it was A Root spelled backwards. We spent a week in cabins at a holiday park with a jumping pillow. Every night we barbequed I wore a tee shirt that said I Love My Girlfriend. Towards the end of the trip I discovered if I wore it inside out it said I Hate My Girlfriend. Funny looks. Good times.
Biarritz is in The South Of France. When I think ‘The South Of France’ I immediately think ‘Playground Of The Rich And Famous’. It’s one of those things people drop into conversation and I think ‘They are rich, they are cool, they are cultured’. I had no idea about The South Of France but it sounded like something I was very keen to be able to drop into conversation. ‘Ah yes, South Of France. Bit of a fucking shithole if you ask me. Not as good as Australia FUCKEN LUCKY COUNTRY BEST PLACE IN THE WORLD CUNT’ etc…
So here we were in Biarritz. We wound through the hilly streets and found our Airbnb apartment block. It was old, dinky and the five flights of carpeted stairs had the smell of everyone’s nanas place in the best possible way. Old. Ancient. Full of history and secrets. The apartment was small but perfect. No wifi? No problem. It was just a place to recharge ourselves and our devices. We’re not here to fuck spiders.
We immediately headed down to the main drag for food and beach. We were looking for a joint someone had recommended called Blue something but couldn’t find it so ended up somewhere else. An outside bistro with a view of the beach, a building site and what appeared to be the French version of Cotton On, proof that every country has it’s bogans. We ordered some unmemorable but satisfactory food and I was mesmerized by two French women a few tables away.
They were well dressed women in their 60s out to lunch with their two little dogs. Dogs in restaurants in Europe? I fucking love it. Never understood why in Australia kids and Collingwood supported are allowed in cafes but dogs aren’t.
So these women ordered their food, a glass of wine and every time they put food on their forks both little dogs reached their front paws as closely as they could to their owners knees and stood on their back legs hustling for a morsel. It would have made a great photo but I wasn’t in the right position and I don’t bust my arse to take holiday snaps. There is a line between making an effort to take snaps to jolt your memories and share with your friends and being totally preoccupied with every photo op. I did think ‘Chances are if I’ve seen it once I’ll see it again.’ Didn’t.
After the women finished their lunch and their wine they ordered café gourmand. Café gourmand is your after meal coffee served with three small desserts. Something like a little cake, a mini crème brulee and a macaroon. It’s fucking brilliant. Of course it’s ‘controversial’ in France. Some say the food is poor quality because it’s leftovers; others say coffee should be a thing on it’s own and not diluted by anything else. I LOVE café gourmand because a) I am a guts and b) because I never want a dessert I just want to try everyone else’s. I think there’s a club for that called everyone.
After the French women had finished their lunch, wine and café gourmand (with none of this ‘oooooh I’ll be naughty’, ‘oh I really shouldn’t’, ‘lucky I wore stretchy pants’ annoying boring bullshit, they just ordered, got stuck in and enjoyed), you know what these old French dames did?
Lit up cigars.
Jesus I could have jumped the table and kissed them. Life goals.
We finished our lunch and wandered along the pier for an ice cream and as I licked it strolling along the promenade having a squiz I thought to myself ‘South Of France. I am on the beach in the South Of France’. The ice cream was great. Just the same as Australia but in the South Of France.
The beach with it’s regulation sand, water, sky and attractive nonchalant people reminded me a little of Bondi. As we lay our towels down there was a gorgeous toddler with her ridiculously beautiful parents who was whinging non-stop despite their efforts to appease her. I am not sure why this amused me but I kept thinking, ‘So you’re on a beach in the South Of France with not only perfect weather but your good looking doting parents and you’re still whinging. Fucking humans. AMIRITE?’
We lay our towels down and Bear immediately went to sleep as he does because he is gifted in many ways and the area he is most skilled in is napping. We call it The Austrian Sleeping Syndrome. Jess checked her social media and I read.
The book I was reading was I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O’Farrell. I met Maggie on the Trans Siberian Express when I was 25. She was clever and cute and had a ridiculously adorable boyfriend. They had both just graduated from Cambridge and were smart, funny, well-travelled Brits. I am not sure how I found this out but Maggie is now a brilliant and super famous writer. She generally writes fiction but her latest book is a memoir about the 17 times in her life she almost died inspired by her young daughters extreme allergies.
‘O’Farrell’s middle child is eight years old. Since birth, she has suffered extreme allergic reactions between 12 and 15 times a year, one or two of which will tip her into full-blown anaphylactic shock. This book is a literary exercise in normalising the near-death experience.’
Jess asked me what I was reading and I explained the book and how I knew Maggie. I asked if Jess wanted me to read her a chapter. ’That would be great’ she said ‘ I love being read to’ and about three pages in she began to snore.
So I lay soaking up the sun while Bear and Jess slept either side of me. I pondered the magic of reading a book by someone you met travelling while you are travelling and her book not only writes about travelling but mentions the ACTUAL trip where you met.
The toddler had stopped whinging and I watched three women around my age chat non-stop for an hour. They reminded me of my friend Marie-Louise and Genevieve. We holiday on the same beach every year and have made a sport from outstanding beach conversations.
We wandered back to the apartment, dressed for some dinner and headed out to a Basque place called Bar Jean for dinner.
We had only been in Biarritz for a few hours and all three of us had already become enamored with a giant bronze statue at the end of our street of a massive sheila we named Sheila. She was not some majestic or ethereal marble figure but a sturdy thick bare footed girl with hips, cankles and practical hair. We read the plaque. La femme Basque, Francisco Leiro. Call the whalers on stormy days.
So we passed Sheila on the way and posed for a snap.
The night was food, laughs and a wander in our new super comfortable Camper boots. At one point a marching band past with a crowd of 80 or so people following. We dawdled home through the town, up and down the hills and along the beach until we found ourselves climbing the five stories to our little apartment with the sea view that you could only see if you wedged yourself between the toilet and the wall and stood on one foot.
I love being five stories up in an apartment because of the views, the quiet and even the flights of stairs. After busy days walking or riding and almost in our bed I love to look up at the five story apartment block and think ‘Big day already and I have to climb a mountain before I go to bed. Game on.’
We woke and as expected the weather was cooler. We had three days in Biarritz. The first and last day of our trip had perfect beach weather and the middle day we knew was going to be mild and cloudy. Perfect slow day. I love a slow travel day. I find it impossible to carve out a slow travel day if the weather is brilliant. It’s always great when the weather is shit so I am forced to slow down. Otherwise I am FUCK LOOK AT THE WEATHER GET UP GET UP WE’RE IN A NEW PLACE!
We began the day with a bad American breakfast at Milwaukee, which according to our internet search seemed our best chance of a decent coffee. It wasn’t. Bear headed home to play guitar (he takes a Washburn travel bass for his medicinal need to do stuff with his hands, his guitar playing is often like his knitting). Jess and I wandered around the shops and I picked up a blue linen frock at a little market stall. As the northern hemisphere descended into winter I shoved my new dress into my bag smugly imagining myself of riding down the Merri Creek to the Coburg Pool wearing it while The South Of France was cold and dark.
The woman who sold me the dress said ‘Very nice. Good fit. And the price is very interesting!’
We kept wandering and I remarked that I do almost my shopping online in Australia. Jess was the same. We both only shop in actual stores when we are travelling. I went through everything I was wearing. All online purchases. Including my bag. We wandered into Galerie Lafayette (the French version of Myer) and each picked up a couple of scarves. I have always been a big scarf fan and Jess lives in Paris where EVERYONE wears scarves. The weather in Paris is quite mercurial and similar to Melbourne in that way. Most people do a lot of walking between home, work, socialising, subway and chores and scarves help regulate the constantly changing temperatures. Also chic. Jess and I found ourselves wandering around the department store chatting and holding things up against ourselves and looking in the mirror. We were having an incredibly relaxing time, neither had done this with a girlfriend for decades.
Jess suddenly remembered she was kind of interested in buying a new leather jacket. I told her she should buy one while I was in town so I could get the tax back at the airport. We tried on things, bought some bits and pieces and I said ‘Fucking hell look at us Jess we’re like a couple of surgeon’s wives out shopping while our husbands are at a conference.’ She couldn’t choose between a black motorbike jacket and a yellow bomber jacket with a fur collar. ‘Why not both?’ I said.
We hooked up with Bear around lunchtime and headed to a bar on the hill called Kostaldea. It was a lovely long walk where we got lost, got found and talked mainly Jess’s ‘visagiste’.
When we all met up in San Sebastian all three of us remarked on how good her hair looked ‘Who cut it?’ asked Em.
‘I don’t go to a hairdresser anymore I go to… a visagist.’
We all roared laughing and it became not only a running joke but a bit of an obsession for me. What was a visagist? Should I go? What would my hairdresser in Melbourne say? He’s a bit like a controlling boyfriend who watches me all the time and never lets me out of his sight.
‘A visagist,’ said Jess tossing her mane and theatrically fingering her curls, ‘is not just someone who simply cuts your hair. It’s someone who finds the essence of who you are and what your style is and sculpts your hair accordingly.
She too has a bit of a possessive hairdresser who has been known to COME TO PARIS FROM FRANKSTON to cut her hair.
I was tossing up a visit to the visagist purely for the story, (that’s how I make all my decisions in life, what would harvest the best anecdotes) but decided an afternoon in Paris sitting in a chair having my hair fondled by a wanker was not the best use of my time.
‘The style assessment and the haircut doesn’t take that long it’s the special drying technique where you sit under one of those old fashioned dryers that takes up all the time. Tell him to do the cut without the drying…’
We found the restaurant behind a golf course on top of the hill. It was more an open air bar than a restaurant so instead of a meal, a view and a glass of wine we ordered multiple serves of their one bar food platter (bread, ham, cheese and pickles) and got drunk on wheat beer while watching the surfers below and planning our next trip.
We rolled down the hill extolling the virtues of daytime drinking and arrived home around five o’clock. We promptly all feel asleep had a nap for an hour or so and then cleaned ourselves up for dinner.
It was a long lovely stroll down the street, paid homage to Sheila, then through the town, over the hill and down onto the beach to Le Surfing a funky casual bistro, more Australian in feel than heavy rich European. Another lovely night.
We did see surfers surfing in Biarritz. It was all a bit sad to be honest. A lot of people for a few shit waves. Despite the fact in France surfing is actually prescribed by doctors for depression.
We woke early keen to grab some gorgeous sun before our 2pm train to Paris. We packed up, had a quick coffee, pastry and juice at the boulangerie and hit the beach. Jess is from Frankston so she rented a wetsuit and a board and hit the waves showing those French cunts what for. Actually I don’t think she even caught a wave. We sucked up as much sun as we could before one by one we head back to the apartment. Bear went back to vacuum and clean the bathroom (this is the only Airbnb I have ever stayed in where you actually have to clean it and not just leave it tidy I mean who would want to stay in a place cleaned by the previous AirBnb visitors?). Jess went up to Galeries Lafayette to carpe diem and buy the two jackets she saw and use my travellers tax free exception and I stayed on the beach eking out the last minutes on the beach. It was much easier knowing I was heading home to warming temperatures. A lot of the Europeans on the beach had the grim look of people on the Titanic. I felt smug. Suffer in your jocks frogs.
Jess had taken my passport to get the tax free deducted from her jackets hoping to pass as me thinking something along the lines of ‘we all look the same to them’. Unfortunately they didn’t buy it and she texted me to meet her at Galeries Lafayette. No prob. I packed up my towel, had a quick dip and headed up the hill. I was wet so I walked along the beach drying off with my sarong around my waist and when I hit the shops, stalls and throngs of wandering I continued.
In Paris NO one wears active/sports/casual/mooching gear in the street. NO ONE. If you are going to the gym you wear your smart street clothes and when you arrive at the gym you changed into your sportswear then when you finish your work out you change back into your smart street gear and walk home. Jess has a mate who does Pilates everyday. The studio is around the corner from her house. Literally ONE BLOCK. Everyday she walks around tp the Pilates studio in her smart street clothes, gets changed, does her one-hour work out, gets changed again and then walks the block to home.
So I walked along in bathers and a sarong towards Galerie Lafayette and a man dressed in 50 shades of cerise and a panama hat loaded down with shopping bags waiting outside an expensive shop for what one assumes would be his partner gives me the biggest dirtiest look.
I just turned to him and said ‘Apres moi le deluge’ (after me, the flood).
I popped on a frock and sorted out Jess and her jackets, signed the forms and we headed back to the apartment for the final time via a place called Bali Bowl a hole in the wall that sold ‘superfood’ smoothie bowls (vomit) had good coffee that took a bizarrely long time to make.
As we turned up the hill to pay homage to Sheila for the final time I heard a voice from across the street ‘Catherine?’
I turned and it was Heide. A mate of Hugo (my 16 year old) on exchange in France. I’ve known this girl since she was in prep. I’d seen her recently at a do in Melbourne for a French exchange student being hosted by my mate Faith and I knew she’d left Melbourne a few weeks ago because I’d seen it on Facebook. I did not expect to run into her as I was wandering through the South Of France in my bathers.
I ran across the road and embraced her. “FUCK WE HAVE TO TAKE A PHOTO YOUR MUM WILL LOSE HER SHIT”. I then looked up and saw she was with her host family. A very French looking mother and a couple of teenage host siblings.
Heide said ‘I just walked passed Stephanie Alexander, now you!’
‘Who next?’ I said ‘Catriona Rowntree? Denise Drysdale?’
Here’s hoping her host family’s English isn’t that good. Jess joined us as I spoke bad French to her host mother and her host mother spoke bad English back to me. I introduced Jess and explained in English to Heide that Jess had been an exchange student too and not only is she now fluent in French but she lives in Paris and works as a manager in tourism.
I was so happy to bump into Heide. When I asked her how it was going she said ‘Up and down’. Being an exchange student is very hard. Not only are you a gangly awkward teenager but you are thrown into a new family, culture and school. My eldest son had a disastrous exchange experience and I have to say it’s the most stressful thing I have ever experienced. So much so the exchange company no longer sends students to that country. They’d had too many similar situations before. I would have loved for Dom to have bumped into a friendly face from home one of those days when things were tough.
(Re Dom’s exchange, he came home and hit the ground running, made sense of it in the way he does and in November is heading back on his own for a month to make peace with it.)
Jess and the host mother spoke in French. The mother had said ‘She came with nothing’ referring to Heide’s French. ‘Yep, that’s normal. That’s the Australian education system’ said Jess (who had also been a school teacher in Australia for eight years) ‘I was the same. Don’t speak any English to her. Only French.’ The mother also added that Heide had made massive progress in a very short time.
If things had been more down than up that day I hoped that little random interaction could help smooth and lubricate for both Heide and her host mother. Hats off to exchange students and their host families. It’s an incredibly valuable thing to do. After the war the all Germans children learned French at school and there were many exchange programmes between the countries to patch up the wounds.
When I posted the photo and reported the sighting to the mums from the primary school we all had a massive laugh ‘Those kid have to be very fucking careful. They never know when one of the school mums is watching them. EVEN if they are in another country!’
We grabbed the cases, dragged them down the five flights of stairs, caught a cab and pretty soon we found ourselves at the Biarritz train station. We stocked up with some assorted charcuterie and a few excellent baguettes from a vending machine and we were on schedule for dinner in Paris.
