Toulouse: Le Trek

From Toulouse

Bonsoir Monsieurs et Mademoisselles! We're here in beautiful Toulouse right now, experiencing overcast skies and periodic showers. It's mid July, and I can't believe that people are wearing warm black jackets and going around carrying umbrellas. Just add a baguette underneath everyone's arm and stick berets on all of them and it would complete my stereotypical image of the French. I think our proximity to the Pyrennes mountains makes this region cool in the summer time. I remember walking in Bordeaux and the lady at the desk of the hostel was dying, and it was probably 80 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Makes me laugh.

I'm glad we're out of Bordeaux. It really didn't have much going for it, other than the wine. I guess I should have figured that out after seeing the logo for the town of Bordeaux, which looks suspiciously like a biohazard symbol. With all the dog crap scattered on the sidewalks of Bordeaux, a biohazard symbol would probably be very appropriate, now that I think about it. We enjoyed our last night in Bordeaux, having a fish and rice feast, drinking rose wine and eating Camembert cheese and bread with this guy Peter from Quebec we befriended. He looked strangely like a shorter version of Tom Green, except not as annoying. He was originally from Newfoundland, so I picked his brain on everything I could about Newfoundland, including how to properly pronounce it (in case you're curious, don't say the letter "O").

We then went out to find a place to drink. We got duped into going into a bar that had a big American flag hanging from it. We figured, "Oh, they must like Americans. Let's go in there!" It was a Harley-Davidson themed bar with all these black leather-clad girl posters on the walls. Very manly. But then they charged Eric a whopping 5 Euros for one bottle of Budweiser (called "Bud" over here due to trademark issues with the real "Budweiser" name (called Budvar) in the Czech Republic). That comes to be about $7.50 American dollars for a Bud. We then realized that Budweiser here is considered an exotic "imported" beer, so we've vowed off of any Anheiser-Busch products here. If you want cheap beer in France, it's either "Kronenbourg" or "1664." Or just get some wine. Nobody drinks beer here anyway, and why should they? The wine is great here!

So after roaming the streets of Bordeaux late at night, and realizing that nothing is open late here in France since they will only work 35 hours a week and no more, we decided that it was time to move on from this biohazard town. So we hopped a train the next day over to Toulouse. It's a major improvement. There's life here late at night, due primarily to the fact that Toulouse is a major college town. About one-third of the population (or about 120,000) are students here. Most are gone for the summer, but the college vibe and energy is still here. Toulouse also some great museums and sights to check out. Today, we spent time at the Musee des Augustins, which was probably my most favorite museum on this entire trip. It has a wide variety of artwork, stretching from the 1200s up until the early 20th century. I especially enjoyed the gargoyles on display, stretched out like a bunch of French can-can girls ready to kick up their legs. Also present were a few Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec paintings, as well as some gorgeous works from the Art Nouveau movement that I really enjoyed.

Upon arriving in Toulouse, we met up with a doctoral student named Joni (nickname for Jonathan) who was going to host us for the evening. There's an internet site called "Couchsurfing.com" in which people across the world volunteer their couches and floors to travellers. So basically, anyone can have a hostel set up in their house. And one of the major perks is that you don't have to pay a thing to stay at these people's homes. So we hung out at Joni's little studio apartment in the heart of old-town Toulouse. Joni was an interesting character, to say the least. He was studying to be a neurosurgeon...was born and raised in Israel by his French parents, then moved to Toulouse for school, and was moving to Holland within a week to continue his studies. Joni was also a major granola at heart. He just became a vegan, so he fixed for us a rice dinner with imitation meat and some lettuce salad on the side. He was so nice to feed us, but I must admit, after the third serving of rice (since that was the only thing on the table) it was starting to get a little old and I was dying for some flavor.

Joni was a riot to talk to. He led us around town for the evening to show us the sights. Then we crashed on his uncomfortable futon bed. In the morning, we had to leave around 10 am so Joni could meditate on his straw mat in front of the futon. He was just starting to get into meditation as well and was attending some "meditation camp" outside of Florence, Italy in a few weeks. I was curious about all this "meditation" and asked him what exactly he thought about when he meditated, and he says, "You can't explain meditation. You just have to experience it." Uh, all right then. I just left it at that, not wanting to cause an international incident by calling him out for speaking mumbo jumbo on me.

After getting kicked out of Joni's place, we had another death march with our packs on to get to the bus station to take us to our campsite. However, once we got there, we realized that the bus schedule was lousy and had limited runs to the campground, so we ended up getting a cheap 1 star rathole hotel in the heart of the city. The location was excellent. However, the drunk Frenchmen yelling outside your window and getting into fights at 3 am got old in a hurry. If I had a pick between drunk Frenchmen and drunk Spanishmen outside of my window, I'd go with the Spanish, because at least they are happy drunks most of the time.