Today I would give my final walking tour of Bordeaux. Having done about five or so of these things, I had my system down, and lots of ideas for a route with Mom and Laura. The big open Place des Quinconces was closed (we later found out this was probably for Jacques Chirac's impending visit to welcome the tramway opening; apparently the mayor of Bordeaux is an old buddy/crony of his), but we still checked out the monument (I have pictures already . . .).

The highlight was the Christmas market, which I hadn't really checked out yet. These are apparently quite common in Europe: the Bordeaux version was all on the centre of one of the main downtown boulevards, with little chalet huts all in a row selling crafts, local food specialties (foie gras, chocolate), lots of little gift-type things like ornaments, wine (of course) and some snack vendors selling crepes and vin chaud (heated spicy wine).

It was the last night in Bordeaux for Claus. The evening would be a quiet one at the apartment, with pizza, some packing, and drinking the leftover booze from both ours and Claus' apartments.

As Brian still had work tomorrow and the parents were off to their hotel, Claus and Laura and I decided to take a crack at the local nightlife. We headed to the Bodegon (Bordeaux's finest underage drinkers? Close enough. All I know is they played that way-o song that I hate and Claus laughed, but I got back at him when they played the robot-talking song he despises). Then it was one last tour to the brasilien club Via Brasil, one of Claus' favourite spots where he knew the staff and owned at the dancing. Sadly, it was quite dead in there, so we made our way home, narrowly missing a serious projectile vomiter after corssing the street. Claus made it home in time for an hour's sleep before the taxi came for him at 4:30am.