Biarritz: Le Grand Tour

Le Grand Tour: big breakfast with toast, yogurt, muesli, fruit, apple juice (from their own apple tree). Into the car for a drive to Espellet, then St.Jean de Luz, to view the very old church where their daughter married, and where Louis XV married Infanta Marie-Therèse of Austria; and the residences built for them in the 1600s. Drive north toward Biarritz and Anglet (pronouced ahnglet), where Dominique spent some

early years.

Lunch in Bidart, at Restaurant Tantina de la Playa, a surfside seafood place, very popular, with a snack bar on the side. We had a difficult time finding a parking place, as the cliffside road was barricaded, so we drove around to another parking area then walked down the cliffside to the beach. No signs, so we assumed the snack bar was the place, but telling the waiter that we had a reservation made him point to the nearby tablecloth restaurant! Maxime ordered chipirons grillé (typical Basque grilled squid) and poivrons farci (stuffed peppers with cod); then Maxime&Dominique shared a large merlue grilled; I had the Ttorro (basque name for a bouillabaise-like stew, mostly mussels and cabillaud; Barb had the grilled salmon. And a bottle of white wine, of

course, which ended up just between Barb and me! Stuffed and well-oiled, we hiked back up the hundred steps, and drove on through Dominique's old stomping grounds of Biarritz and Anglet, driving past the house of Putin's ex-wife, the house of Putin's reputed daughter (recently invaded and filmed by YouTubers), and a Californian surfing mogul.

We walked along the beach, then drove back home, for another huge gourmet meal: Steamed leeks (very traditional entrée) then duck confit, which Maxime had evidently first prepped last winter, storing it in its own fat graisse.

Comments

Where we are working now

ISG Jubail School is the Anglo-American school for this area: Jubail is one of two planned industrial cities in Saudi Arabia, given a special royal commission for development and planning. Our district, the seven schools of International Schools Group, runs the school in the other industrial city -- Yanbu -- as well. Jubail is on the east coast, between Dhahran and Kuwait. Our nearby "big city" is the tri-city metropolis of Dhahran-Khobar-Dammam, where all the big shopping malls and quaint old markets are, along with the central 3 schools of our district, where Coleman attends high school. ISG Jubail has 410 students -- an average of 2 homerooms for each grade, K-10. Class size varies, up to 22. I have 12 in my required course "Computers & Information Management"; Barb has 12 students in her first-grade class. Most of the teaching staff come from the U.S., some from the Commonwealth. Several teachers are wives of engineers an...

Driving everyone crazy

One of the lightning rods of dissent in the Kingdom is the government's refusal to permit women to drive. We know of no other nation with this ban; and to compound the confusion, there is apparently no explicit law banning it, just a reference to a decree in 1991. Like the other irritating restriction of the niqab veil, it also has no basis in the Koran, and therefore is not easily upheld in Sharia law. Recently the first name "Manal" has become a symbolic name, as the divorced Aramco IT expert -- she received awards for her expertise a few years ago -- drove a car near Coleman's high school last month and published the feat on YouTube. The deliberately banal video inflamed the sensibilities of the Saudi police, who detained Manal in the women's reformatory for 10 days. Her lawyer carefully pointed out that there was no law against her driving, and further she carefully avoided any reference to the Facebook group urging women to all drive on June 17th. St...

Reservoir of European Youth, Parliament

A few days ago I walked to the nearby Pasteleira Park, planning to visit the city museum at the Reservoir. Walking through the park I noticed a large group of young people gathered in a circle, engaged in team-building activities. My days in education attuned me to the spectacle and piqued my interest, so I sat on a nearby bench and watched as a succession of enthusiastic students ran to the center and started an activity, which all the others joined enthusiastically. What sort of group would this be? A typical high school class would include a portion of disinterested teens, and others only half-heartedly participating. This crowd was unanimous in their excitement. I also noted that the leaders were speaking in English, though the breeze muffled the words. I walked around, found a couple of older participants on the side, with official-looking lanyards, and asked: this was an activity of European Youth Parliament , simil...

Thomas journals

Search This Blog