the french cookie: Toulouse

Another vacation! Leslie and I have been trying to decide for weeks where to go for the first week of vacation. Due to money and lack of commitment, we didn't make a decision until the day before. We decided to go to Toulouse for the first 3 days. We were even more spontaneous when we decided to go Saturday by covoitureage (carpooling). David L was very nice, but he lacked on the loud, crazy side. So we had a nice, quiet 3 hour ride from Avignon to Toulouse. He did earn points when he let us stop at a rest stop that overlooked the fortress in Carcassonne.

He dropped us off in the middle of town where we met our next "spontaneous decision", Pierre. A friend of ours from the Gap stayed with Pierre back in October and gave him great reviews. So we contacted Pierre the day before and asked if his spare apartment was available for us and sure enough it was! Pierre met us in the middle of town and took us back to the apartment. Since we were staying for free, we thought it would be nice to bring him a gift, and what's the one thing that all French people love? Wine! I have always been super nervous to buy wine for a French person but it turns out that we struck gold! We opted for a wine from our region and one for more than 3€. Our big hopes for this trip were to explore the city and do things the locals do, boy were we in for a treat. Saturday night Pierre's cousin and two friends joined us at the apartment then we all went to one of their mutual friend's basketball games. First off, I didn't know this sport even existed in this country. Secondly, no wonder it's not more popular, it was terrible. I am not much of a basketball guru, but this was no March Madness. Even so, we had a great time. Afterwards, we went out for dinner which was good considering it was 11pm! The next morning we were up and at it at 10:30! Pierre told us that one reason he picked his apartment building was because there is a market right outside every Sunday morning. That was our first stop on the list. Leslie bought herself a ring and tried her very first empanada. We came across the goat cheese fougasse and bought it without hesitation. We snacked on fougasse and bread as we ventured into the center of town. We walked closed to 8 hours that day and explored nearly every part of the city. Our goal for the day was the walk enough so we could continuously eat, success. I even tried two new mini pastries. One was a chocolate layer cake with a praline crust, chocolate mousse then chocolate ganache on top (I immediately wished that I had bought the big version) and the second was an almond crust with almond cream and almond slices on top. We explored te major squares, a chapel, beautiful garden and even hiked across the river. We finally made it back to the apartment around 6:30 where we rested for awhile. Pierre had mentioned that he was going to be making Chinese food for dinner and asked if we cared to join. We politely declined then decided that we wanted some sort of Asian cuisine. We found a Thai restaurant close by and got ourselves up for dinner. Monday morning we weren't as timely. We got out of the apartment around noon and went to the supermarket and boulangerie for breakfast. The last things on our list to see were a chapel and a Japanese Garden in the northern part of the city. After getting lost and wandering around for awhile, we finally found the garden. It wasn't anything too special and the only thing worth noting was this weird dragon creature in the water. Before our train, we stocked up on candy and pastries to amuse us for the three hour ride. We both decided that we liked Toulouse, but I probably wouldn't go out of my way to visit it again.