Allons à la plage, plage...

...allons s'évader. (Points if you get the reference!)

Spontaneous trip to the beach today!! I say beach, what I really mean is La Dune du Pyla, where this photograph originates from. Now today, we weren't going to be going anywhere until Hugo bounced into the room shouting we needed to leave right now because we were going to have a trip to Arcachon to go and see the biggest sand dune in Europe, and even with my bad leg I wasn't going to turn that down. His other reason was that "It will be sunny!!!"...famous last words, but more than that later!

After grabbing lunch (my new favourite sandwich, goat's cheese and Parma ham with honey glazed bread!) we got on the train for Arcachon, and serendipitously a bus for the sand dune had just arrived so we headed off straight away in glorious sunlight. I can't really explain just how big this sand dune was, but if I say it took us around forty minutes to travel up it...I guess that gives you some idea of scale! Getting up was the hard part, if you imagine that the sand is pretty loose and you just have to go for it, Hugo and I could not stop laughing which also did not help the situation. And due to this and this we both decided that barefoot was going to be better! Once we were on the top, the view was pretty awesome, as you can imagine. This was my favourite vista, as I really liked how the light looked, and the lone man in the right hand corner.

Now the weather, well it was warm...but also decided to rain (not for long, but it was pelting rain, on top of the largest sand-dune in Europe, but the sea...well you get the idea!) Typically British, we go for a day at the beach and it rains! Didn't really stop our enjoyment of the dunes, as we stayed until everything had closed, and had no way to wash our feet...cue some fascinated old French men watching us try and clean our feel under water drips! This was followed by one of them coming over and pointing out a place with more concentrated drips. It takes a special kind of person to be laughed at by the French, and Hugo and I managed it perfectly! Probably didn't help that we were also laughing like absolute lunatics, and probably looked like we had just escaped from the nearest mental institution...

Heading back into the town we stopped for a quick café and beignet before getting the train back to Bordeaux. This is not where the story ends however; we then met up with Natasha and Sammy for dinner at Peppone (also a highly recommended restaurant!). This restaurant does not accept reservations, but the place is so popular that there is a queue out of the door to sit down! Was well worth the wait, and an absolutely lovely evening spent with some lovely Warwick people...looking forward to seeing them all again next year. Again, this is not where the story ends; Hugo, Natasha and I headed back to the flat for some drinks, then many hours later Hugo and I had the strangest tram journey I have ever experienced...think around five hundred drunk students, the majority dressed as either cowboys or Indians...it was so packed I ended up practically on someone's knee! I think an "experience" is definitely the word for it! So where did we go? Two places...my first experience ever on a nightclub, on a boat (yes, on a boat...called iBoat) and the second being Pier 6 to meet up with Sayane and her friend (better music, and also...free entry by accident as I didn't realise I needed to pay!). Got home at around 7am, after an awesome hot-dog (with crunchy onions!).

Going to regret all of this tomorrow morning...