I really did not mind having rather less luggage to cart around on the train, that is for sure. And Sophie's friends Anne and Martin were lovely, providing me with survival towel, toothbrush and t-shirt until my suitcase arrived two days later, just after Michael.
Anne also lent me a coat, which is quite nice given the cold, windy weather here - on my first night, a storm was rattling the shutters in the flat. Since then, at least we have had sunshine. But I think that actually Michael is handling the climate change better than me. My body just screams "NO, I had this for 20 years already, take me back to the pacific!!!"
We are now staying in a flat in the Cité U, i.e. on campus in Brest. The flat is huge and has a TV, but no oven, unfortunately.
On Friday we enjoyed a nice lunch organised by the IRD CTE (comité d'entreprise) in a restaurant on the beach St Anne, just below the Technopôle where IRD and IFREMER are located.
On Saturday we just walked around central Brest, taking pictures of the harbour and the huge Brest bay ("rade").
On Sunday morning, we walked down to the Halles de St Louis, the covered market, which was not all I had hoped. But at least they had fish, oysters, abalones and the large crabs that are loved here:
In the end, we bought cheaper fruit from the Arab market stands outside, and then permitted ourselves some sausages from the Savoie sausage stand inside - the nice gentleman would have let us try all of them, I think. We setlled for one sausage with pork meat and mushrooms and one with duck, although I quite liked the one that had blueberries.
In the afternoon, Michael's accoustics teacher in Brest picked us up and took us to her village, St Renan. It is even further out on the Bretagne peninsula, where white traditional houses crowd between the grassy hills on the cliffs above the sea and the coast is littered with islands, isles and, as a natural consequence, lighthouses and buoys.
We had a coffee in Anne's lovely wooden\stone house, then went for a walk on the beach while the tide was out. There we discovered the kelplike seaweed typical for this coast scattered in the sand. It looked like bones, deflated rubber toys for dogs, and whips...
Michael and I and Anne's youngest were not so keen on a long trip, so we took lots of pictures and then returned to the house, had a delicious aperitif, then went on to "Murphy's", where we enjoyed the compulsory crêpes and cidre (alas, the mussel season has yet to begin). Very full, tired and content, we were returned to our humble abode, where we promptly fell asleep.
