Lazing about Toulouse

Some random art, which there was lots of around the city. I think it looks kinda funny and kinda cool too. It reminds me of the three eyed fish in The Simpsons.
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My trip to Toulouse was not a tourist trip, but rather a social trip to visit my friend Sarah who had been studying abroad there since the end of August. It was a great way to get to see the city, I felt more like I lived there then like I was simply just visiting. Toulouse has this really great vibe about it. The people are much friendlier then in Paris and the whole city just has a really laid-back attitude. Its also more of a college town, so I felt like I fit right in being a student myself. And even though I don't speak any French, most people know a little English so it was ok. Plus Sarah is fluent in French so I let her do most of the talking for me, and when she wasn't with me I learned enough to at least be able to order a sandwich.

This is one of the main streets that leads directly to Capitole, there are lots of small streets like this around the main square.
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When I arrived in Toulouse at 11 in the morning I was completely jet-lagged have just spent an entire day practically on a plane. I flew from San Diego to LA, to Chicago, to Brussels, and then finally to Toulouse. When I went to get my luggage I was not at all surprised to discover that they had lost it, I had been expecting this in the back of my mind. So since I didn't speak more then a few useless words of French I simply followed the few other people who had not gotten there luggage as well while keeping a hopeful eye out for my friend who was meeting me there. Turns out the help desk was all the way on the other side of the airport, and even though it was a small airport, it felt large and totally foreign to my tired self. I lost track of the people I was following, and couldn't find my friend and as I was pitifully trying to use my phone card to call her and looking oh so like a lost puppy, the people who I'd been following saw me and directed me towards the desk where I could ask about my luggage. As I was walking towards it suddenly Sarah sprang up from the chair she'd been half falling asleep in. Aw sweet relief. I explained what was up and let her and her masterful French speaking skills take over. I ended up getting one piece of my luggage delivered the next day, and the other piece the next week thanks to yet another mix up, but eso es la vida.

This is the river as seen from the park area on on the right bank of it. Its a really beautiful place for a picnic.
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Sarah and I took the very convenient air shuttle to Capitole, which she lives right next to. She decided to drag me off the shuttle a few stops sooner then we needed to and made me trudge through the city while I was basically dead on my feet and wasn't actually able to absorb any of what I was seeing or where we were going. Finally, after what felt like hours (but probably wasn't), we made it back to her place. It was SOOO tiny, but adorably cute. When you walked in the door if you went strait up a couple of steps you would be in Sarah's room/the living room, but if you went to the right down a scary curvy small flight of stairs you'd been her roommates bedroom, which you also had to walk through to get to the small bathroom at the other end. The kitchen was through a door at the other end of Sarah's room. It was by fare the smallest kitchen I'd ever seen. I was definitely in Europe.

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Later that evening we made our way back to the airport to pick up our friend Laura who was flying in from England to visit for a few days (she lives in Bath). We spent the next few days hanging out and wandering around the streets of Capitole. Capitole is the main square of town, around which there is a ton of stores and restaurants, and plenty of little sandwich places and bakeries. All the end of the Holidays Soldes (sales) were going on, so during the weekend there was crazy mass amounts of people. Walking around was a constant struggle through the masses, but that just made it more exciting. Capitole was a great place for me to explore during the day while Sarah was in class, its large enough to have plenty of shopping, but small enough for me to have learned my way around by my second day there. The river is also really near by so I went to check that out on my own one day as well. It's a really beautiful place to walk around because there's a great park area that has grassy lawns and a bunch of benches to just sit and look at the river.

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My time visiting Sarah was fairly chill and relaxing. We didn't feel obligated to need to go out and do things all the time, but were content to just stay in her apartment and watch x-files on dvd. We also spent much of our time eating cheese and bread. Which sounds kinda boring, but really the cheese and bread in France is just so good, their cheapest cheeses are like our most expensive cheeses in the States. Which just amazes me. Cheese here now just seems all too fake (which it kinda is).  Thats the great thing about traveling to visit a friend though, you don't have to be busy doing things and seeing things in order to have a really amazing time. When I returned home I felt really refreshed and I definitely missed being in Toulouse, my two weeks there felt much too short, if I hadn't had to go back to school I probably would have stayed longer.