September 23

Last night on satellite TV in our room we found Bloomberg Financial Network in English. I rather wish I had not watched. Let’s see, Dow down 400 points, Oil up $25 a barrel and the dollar getting hammered by the Euro – can’t wait to get home! I swear I will not watch that horror show again tonight. Ignorance is truly bliss.

To add to that, I have finally hit the wall. I do not really want to drive anywhere, to sit and do nothing or to take a walk. And now, going home is no great choice either apparently. So we staggered through town and found a very touristy, hokey tiny tram-train that drove through the streets in and around town that passed the great premier grand cru chateaux of St-Emilion.

That is how tired I was. I actually enjoyed this non-thinking tram experience. After 35 minutes of that we had lunch in the main square, al fresco (perhaps a French phrase would have been more appropriate there). Ann wished to try authentic cassoulet. I had a quattro stagione bruschetta (Italian words again!) Talking to a very proper older British couple (Our age? Yes), with fine upper crust accents at an adjacent table, was the highlight of the meal. The food was very good.

We went to a super market in Libourne, a large town nearby, to get bread, cheese and a sweet for dinner. We purchased a bottle of wine at an impressive local chateau winery for dinner, said screw the Dow and bought a 1994 St-Emilion. They said this 15-year-old wine was now ready to drink (and so were we). We put our feet up starting in the early afternoon and relaxed until we uncorked the wine for our “dinner”. Total relaxation, I think, for the first time in a month.

Tomorrow we go to the Haut Medoc north of Bordeaux and the birthplace of some of the most expensive wines in the world. Fortunately, these are wines that will not be ready to drink until well after my liver has shriveled to the size of an acorn. So, no need to purchase!