Arg

I said it before and I'll say it again, I want to go home.

Perhaps it's that our bout in Paris has put me in a foul mood. Perhaps it's that it has rained every day for three weeks and we are still in our winter jackets and toques. Or perhaps it's because this dingy city we have arrived in is the Flint, Michigan of France.

We are stuck for three nights in Merignac, which is a suburb of Bordeaux, but so far as I can tell one is just a further rundown version of the other. The houses in the small residential area beside us are surrounded by chain link or wooden fences erected atop the original short stone walls. The nearest grocery store from our hotel is a twenty minute walk along roads lined with industrial buildings, boarded up stores, and graffitied walls. Surrounding the grocery store (a Carrefour which is the size of and exactly like a Wal-Mart) is a large mall and huge department stores just as I would see in Canada. Except for the few French signs I may as well be in the Famous Players parking lot back home in Windsor.

Oh, and have either of us mentioned the rain? It seems to be following us everywhere we go. I am going to scream if we don't have at least one sunny day soon.

All of the people we have met in Europe (including France) have been wonderful but the "vibe" of each country has not been at all as I imagined. A bit naive I know, but part of me really expected Europe to feel like a whole new world, akin to what you read in books and see on TV. Instead it feels as if I'm in Canada with older historical sites and the same friendly people, just with different accents. I am honestly ready to call it quits and go home but Ryan has encouraged us to go on. Thanks entirely to him we're buying train tickets to try a new city in Europe instead of buying one-way plane tickets home. On to Barcelona (if only because the forecast is sunny) where we will rethink our plans and (hopefully) recharge our spirits.