are you trop tired?

This photo update is overdue. I spent the past two days exploring the city with Stephanie, Colin, and Jonah (an American doing post-doc work at another university campus). To situate those of you who don't know Bordeaux, I'm living in Pessac, which is a sort of a suburb of Bordeaux. There is, however, a tram stop at the center of campus that takes me straight into Bordeaux in a matter of minutes.

At an exposition today, these 1600 plastic panda bears in front of the cathedral represented the remaining number of pandas in the world.

We stopped for canelés (a sweet muffin-like treat native to Bordeaux) at this open-air market, which takes place ever Sunday morning along the river (behind me in this shot).

Even the plainest streets are postcard-worthy.

We stumbled across this garden in the center of the city.

It's unbelievably picturesque here, and the weather is quite temperate, too (though it gets very cold at nighttime). Hopefully I'll be able to upload more pictures soon. I chose not to pay for unlimited Internet access this month and instead only paid for 50 hours. I have a feeling I'll upgrade for October.

Tomorrow morning I must take a placement test which will determine all of my courses for the first semester. There are four levels of courses, and I expect to test into at least the third. I feel as well-prepared as I could be. Last night I was roaming the city with some new French friends and was speaking so fluidly with them. We'll see. In the meantime, I need to get a good night's sleep.