We’ve been away from home for about 6 weeks, so it’s time for a trim and Dale got to experience the French fashion scene by getting her hair done in Bordeaux as we thought about a night out on the town.

Leaving the salon, we wandered around the city center for a while, then stopped for dinner around 6:30 at an outdoor café on the walk back to the house, only to find out that they didn’t start serving food until 7:30.

We decided to walk on back to the house to pack for an excursion the next day in the car, but when we arrived, there was a car parked in front of the garage door blocking our exit. The same car had parked in the same place the night before, too, delaying our excursion once already. Aha, I thought: two days in a row; it must be a neighbor! So, I started rocking the car back and forth, trying to set off the car alarm to maybe attract the owner’s attention.

Unbeknownst to me, the owner had apparently seen me from across the street as I walked around his car looking for anything inside identifying the owner or his address and he was already on his way over to move the car when I had started rocking it. I can only guess what he thinks about us: “Look, Marie, zees crazy American eez ‘itting our auto!”

His car moved, I pulled the MG out of the garage and parked it on the street so we could get on our way in the morning, then we went inside to change.

We returned to the café at 7:30 to find that the place was now packed! We got the last table and then proceeded to sit. And sit. And wait. And sit. Finally, our order was taken. Then we sat. And waited some more. The meal finally came. By now, all the tables around us had turned over at least once, if not twice. The food was good, but by the time we were served, shoe leather would have sufficed. We left just before 10:00, too late for us to do anything now but go back home.

It was a nice walk in the waning light…

…but not exactly a big night on the town.

Well, you make do.