Albi

Not my photo, but this is the most common shot of Albi, a town an hour from Toulouse by train. It straddles the River Tarn and the big building is Saint Cecile-- the largest brick cathedral in the world.

Albi is a romantic's dream!  Not an uncobbled street can be found in the center of town; brick paths wind down steep wooded banks to the river, which is spanned by arched bridges and aqueducts; heavy bows of purple wisteria hang over the alleys.  Follow narrow flights of stairs to tiled terraces and you'll soon find yourself dead-ended on someone's back porch, with their potted flowers and clothes line.  Turn off the main street, mount a few steps and you'll discover this courtyard, quiet except for the incessant cooing of pigeons:

The Cloister of Saint Salvy

The Palace of the Berbie offers this view of the Tarn, complete with gardens, a vine-covered promenade, and the orange-shingled roofs of the stacked houses across the river:

I spent Saturday in Albi, arriving around noon when the sidewalk and terrace cafes were filling up.  It was sundress weather.  Kids ran through fountains and the homemade gelato shops were doing good business.  With so many picturesque alcoves, it was hard to choose where to eat mine.  The heat made the fragrance of flowers hang in the air and the atmosphere felt like summer vacation, without lots of tourists.  Albi isn't huge, but in addition to its charm, it has a few attractions that draw crowds-- the Cathedral Saint Cecile and the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum (I visited the museum--of the French artist by the same name-- but I'll spare you the details).  This weekend there were only a couple coaches worth of tourists so there was an agreeable array of people (no one likes walking around a deadbeat town unless it's supposed to be that way).

I went inside the enormous Cathedrale de Saint Cecile and it was 15 degrees cooler inside-- out of the sun, surrounded by all that stone, the familiar smell of candles and old wood.  Cathedrals first impress with their size and grandeur, and after a few minutes of taking it in, it's the details: the decor and the carvings.  Put the two together-- such elaborateness in so much space -- and you could spend days in there and not see every intricacy.  Saint Cecile stands out from the rest in that every foot of it--the walls, the bays, the ceilings-- is painted:

France has a lot of towns with cathedrals and quaint streets, but Albi turned out to be one of my favorites.  A smooth train ride through the country and back and an afternoon spent wandering through this treasure of a town-- it was a Saturday well-spent.

First Spring, Now Summer!

This week has been a string of shining days, days that beg to be spent outside, days with surprising, new-found longevity-- 8:30pm and it's still light?  Winter is over!  80 degrees, not a cloud in sky.  The birds sing so loudly that I can hear them over the rush of wind as I ride my bike.  Cut grass, dandelions, all of a sudden the trees have leaves again-- it feels like summer in Boston or New York. I shop at the best street market in town where I can get 10 kiwis for 1 euro; apples for 80 cents/kilo; oranges, strawberries, mushrooms, avocados...

I spend hours in the long afternoons enjoying Toulouse's parks-- lying on the grass reading with my new Kindle and listening to the music circle of some students next to me.  One guy even had a trombone.  Katie and I had a picnic by the Garonne downtown-- tomato and goat cheese sandwiches, olives, fruit, and wine-- trying to "bronze" our ghostly legs. (I learned that wine doesn't do much to quench your thirst; I should've had some water in addition).  She strummed her ukulele and I tried to remember "Let it be," which I learned on the ukulele this summer...  I rode my bike in a sundress carrying a baguette-- with this weather, I can ride my bike anywhere, so I spend less time on the metro. I've been trolling the streets for an unclaimed lilac bush where I can poach some flowers.  Being so residential, though, all of the lilacs are well secured behind fences.  Until this morning! On my jog in the green zone behind my apartment, there by the road was a whole bank of lilac bushes; I returned with a bag and a knife and now my room is full of my favorite fragrance!

Ode to Spring

April... such a pretty month, especially following March.  Even after living in Austin where March was the loveliest month of the year, I still connote it with dirty snow and dreary countenances.  April, though, is springtime!  And it feels like it in Toulouse.  The first two days of April were the sunniest, prettiest days anyone could ask for.  Flowers--daffodils, tulips, pansies, and poppies-- cover the roadsides and the parks.

A patch of flowers that I pass on my bike on my way to work.  The picture doesn't do it justice-- it's painfully pretty.

 Yesterday, in celebration of the glorious weather, I rode my bike along the canal to le Jardin des Plantes (Toulouse's "Central Park," if you will), where I wrote and read and observed the Mallard ducklings and all the picnickers. 

I'm well aware that ever since graduation, I've been on a paid vacation-- first Alaska, now France.  I have so much free time, it's almost a crime, but instead of guiltily trying to fill it, I've chosen to accept the blessing.  There is a season for everything-- a time to run and a time to rest, a time to work and a time to play-- and all one can do is enjoy it as it comes.  So during these lengthening days, I'm relishing my last weeks in Toulouse.   It's hard to believe I leave in less than a month!  Besides the usual reading and writing, I occasionally try my feet at the slack-line and frequently research the next steps of my European adventure (a month on the rails, but you'll hear about that when it happens!).  Praise God for spring and all the newness it brings!

Hitch-hiking

I never told you about hitch-hiking back from Barcelona, did I?  Well, now that I got my hands on a few of Katie's pictures, I will.

It wasn't my first time to stick my thumb out.  My debut was this summer in Alaska: a group of us, after walking to town, piled into someone's truck bed to save us the 6 miles back to camp...  But the real hitch-hiking experience was at the end of the summer, the final seal on the two most adventurous months of my life... Reid and I had four days before our planes left Alaska, so we stood with our backpacks by the highway (one of the most scenic routes in the world) to see where we'd end up.  In those four days we hiked, camped, slept near a glacier, got picked up by a dog-musher (not in her sled with the dogs--that would've been really cool-- it was just her occupation) and made it to Seward, a seaport town and the destination we were shootin' for.

Hitch-hiking from Barcelona was different: with Reid, it had been carefree-- not for a minute did I worry about my safety-- but this time, being two lone girls, caution (and a tinge of fear?) was thrown into the mix. And while Alaska in the summer is a hitch-hiker's paradise, it's not as common in Catalonia and southern France.  You have to be more strategic because any old road isn't going to hack it.

We tried hitching straight out of the center of Barcelona, but saw pretty quickly that it was futile.  I was embarrassed with all the Spaniards driving to work and gawking at us.  We weren't well-placed, so we switched to Plan B and took a train to the outskirts of the city.  From the train station, we had to get to a gas station on a near-by highway.  This mini trek included traversing the tracks, crawling under fences, and hiking through weeds...

At the gas station, a couple of construction workers laughed at our attempts from afar, making me smug when our first ride pulled over 10 minutes later:  an 18-wheeler driven by a Polish man.  It was our first time inside a semi-- pretty cool being up that high.  I didn't mind at all that we were in the slow lane, as long as we were moving! Homeward bound!  The Pollock knew no English or French so conversation was limited; we smiled and nodded a lot, until he came up with the words "telephone numero?" to which we said no.  He dropped us at a big junction just south of the border.

At the junction, we used the bathroom and were making ourselves some sandwiches when a trucker walked by, saw our "France" sign on the ground, and offered us a ride.  It was like negative waiting time!  He was a 30-year-old half-Portuguese/half-Italian guy, very talkative, dancing to music, giving us soda.  I'm surprised he didn't ask for our numbers.  But, he let us off with a smile in Narbonne, France.

We were making good time, flying high off our success, singing while we waited for one more ride.

This time it wasn't a semi.  It was a French businessman in a nice car-- man, how that thing flew after being in the slower trucks!  He said he picked up hitch-hikers whenever he could because he had hitch-hiked around Europe as a college student.  Katie, whose French is better than mine, sat up front, allowing me to sit taciturnly in the back, worn out.

We made it, quite successfully, in fact.  Maybe it quenched our need for adventure for a little while.




For kicks, here I am in Barcelona eating octopus:

Andorra

It's a land-locked country between France and Spain, half the size of New York City, and it's where I decided to venture this Saturday.  I figured I'd never be this close again!

I love an early start, so it was still dawn when my train started south. The two and a half hours felt quick after the six-hour trip to Paris and back.  Andorra is so small and mountainous that it has no airport and no train stations.  Only by car, bus, or helicopter can you get in, so my train stopped on the French side of the border and left us to go the rest of the way by bus.  Thing is, the bus only runs every so often-- not often enough, it would seem.  Ninety plus people poured out of the train, all of us going the same direction, but the bus only held fifty.  The next bus wasn't coming for perhaps an hour, creating a chaotic scene.

The mob of people could be split in two: young people in snowsuits carrying skis and snowboards, headed for the slopes, and older, rough-looking people going to stock up on cigarettes and liquor in the duty-free zone. The latter group outnumbered the skiers.  I was at the very back of this "line" and saw that I'd be stuck at the train station if I didn't make a move.  I skirted around the back side of the bus and wedged myself right into the door.  I don't think they noticed amidst the shouting and jostling (a convenience of traveling solo).  It took a while to push my way onto the bus; one rude lady told me to respect the line; I got hit in the head by someone passing their shopping cart over the crowd to someone on the bus.  People got separated-- one person on the bus and the other not going to make it, so they were passing tickets out and making plans to meet later.  By the time I paid and was on the bus, I found the only remaining seat, in the back near a rowdy group of men speaking a convoluted style of French (definitely not civilized Parisians, these guys).  As I sat and the bus took off, I was proud of my pro-active self, glad I wasn't stuck with the forty people left behind.

The guys played Indian (?) music out of a little boombox, making me feel like I was riding through the Himalayas, not the Pyrenees.  The road was a series of switchbacks across the sides of mountains.  Within a few minutes, we reached the Andorran border, where it dawned on me that I didn't have my passport.  I had completely forgotten it, hadn't switched it from one purse to the other.  When I went to Spain we hadn't so much as tapped the brake at the border; I hadn't needed my passport, so I didn't even think of a border check, but there it was.  Turns out Andorra isn't part of the EU, that's why.  As the bus pulled over and the guards got on and everyone took out their National Identity Cards, I found my TX driver's license, however much good that would do.  I wasn't really nervous-- what could they do? Send me back; my trip would be short-lived, but all I'd suffer would be the minor embarrassment of getting kicked off the bus in front of all those people.

They let me in!  Where did I live? Where I was going? What I was doing?  They told me with a frown not to do it again.  The ordeal gained me some attention from the people around me on the bus.  "Une americano!"  Did I speak French? When was I going back to the U.S.?  "Great, I'm coming with you!"  Despite their gruff appearance, I could tell they were joking.  A sweet Moroccan lady sitting next to me took my hand, stroked it and cooed comforting, protective words-- I must've looked shaken up, but I really wasn't.  

With the uncertainty of getting back into France looming over me, I cheerfully went about my day in Andorra.  I shopped with the rest of them.  I wasn't in the market for alcohol or cigarettes or perfume, but I did buy shoes.  European shoes, you might envision heels and boots, but I got these babies:

First sneakers I've bought in four years. No more UT freebies. They didn't have any in burnt orange unfortunately.

Thankfully I found what I was looking for because if I hadn't, I would've had to buy things just to prove to the border patrol that I had shopped.  The shoe place gave me a huge bag so I looked legit.

I took another bus further into Andorra, to the capital city (not a drive for the easily car-sick).  Lots of ski stations along the way and a city full of stores.  A river ran through it, lined with beautiful trees:

Andorra-la-Vella

Andorra is reputed for its scenery; at least that's what's advertised to Europeans, but I wasn't blown away.  The mountains were nice, but not overly impressive, nothing compared to the Rockies.  The buildings and towns in the valleys could have been more aesthetically pleasing.  Andorra-la-Vella and Pas-de-la-Casa had nothing other than stores, hotels, and restaurants, which makes one appreciate well-rounded cities like Toulouse, London, Paris.  But it's unfair to compare it to cities twice the size of the whole country.  Eighty percent of Andorra's economy is in shopping and skiing tourism, so it serves its purpose and people enjoy going there!

Walking around, peeking in stores, reading in the park, watching the day change from sunny and 60 to snowing, drinking hot chocolate.. then catching the bus back out.  The moment of truth arrived when we pulled over at the border, but to my relief the guards got on, walked the aisle, gave us a look over, and sent us on our way without checking passports!  I was safe and sound back in France, headed home to Toulouse.

A weekend in Paris

I never imagined I'd be in the position to spend a weekend in Paris on a whim, but there it is.  I canceled my Friday afternoon classes, scurried to the train station, and was northbound by noon, excited not only to see the City of Light again, but to explore it with company this time.  My friend Reid and his mother were the reason for the trip.  How nice to go on a trip where all I had to do was get myself there! He booked the hotel and made the plans.

The night I arrived was rainy-- I looked like Mary Poppins with my big black handbag/suitcase in one hand and my umbrella in the other.  After meeting Reid's mom and hearing about their bus ride over from London, we trotted out for a late dinner in a brasserie, which I happily ordered for them in French (they joked that I was their French-speaking guide, but in reality they could've gotten on just fine without me).  Vegetable soup, steamed potatoes, pate, bread, fish with the eyes still in it, and red wine.

The rain had stopped when we walked out of the restaurant.  We headed for the Eiffel Tower which was only a few blocks away.  As we stood admiring it (you always remember the first time you stand before it), it burst into sparkles before our very eyes-- must have been midnight.

Blurry, but I like it.

Other highlights of the weekend included an afternoon of reading in the sunny gardens of Versailles, a morning at the Louvre, buying bread, cheese, and six bottles of wine for nights at the hotel, a sunset boat-ride on the Seine, and a trip up the Eiffel that Reid finagled for us-- for half the price, we got to skip the 3-hour wait in line! (Let me know if you're ever in Paris and I'll tell you the secret).

We went up the Tower on our last morning, a clear sunny day-- Paris is a very white city from up there!

On the second story-- that's plenty high already, then you keep going up all that way!

Reid and his mom at the Louvre

Some trees were in bloom and there were daffodils and tulips in the parks-- a change since I saw it under snow at Christmas!

Versailles

 

The sunset we witnessed on our sight-seeing cruise-- we marveled at the perfect timing of all of our excursions and the beauty God blessed us with.  When the boat turned around and we trolled back toward the Eiffel, the sun had set and everything wore its night-time lights.

Excursions

Stonehenge

While in London, my companions and I took two excursions into western England to see the country-side and break up the city pace.  Both were bus tours: not my favorite mode of travel by far, but I can see the attraction: it's the easiest and cheapest way to see lots of sites without bustling for different train tickets and admissions yourself.  Even if I had to sit next to a Bangladeshi man that smelled like smoke and kept asking me stupid questions despite my obvious "I don't want to talk" body language (shoulders facing square out the bus window), it could've been much worse.

One of our guides, a bald Englishman named James, was top-notch.  His accent was melodic, his speech well-practiced, and he gave us interesting facts the whole way (for example: Her Majesty the Queen likes to drive herself to Winsor in her Range Rover every weekend).  Sadly, our second guide didn't have the expertise nor the professionalism of James, which made the tour less enjoyable and informative.  I sometimes felt like a herd of cows getting hurried past the sites, embarrassed to be seen as such a herd-able tourist.  Oh well.  Mainstream tourism is admissible every now and then, I suppose, if time necessitates it.

One of the days brought us to Winsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Bath.  Winsor has character-- after seeing numerous grand buildings and chateaus, they tend to start looking the same, but even so, Winsor stood out.  I decided I'd rather live there than at Versailles-- more homey, less gawdy.

Bath was the epicenter of leisure back in the Victorian era.  Jane Austen had a house there, so her stories were influenced by the social lives of the idle rich that met there for mingling.  There is a bath in Bath, which we toured.  It's an ancient Roman bath built around natural hot springs-- the only hot springs in the UK.

The second day trip was to Warwick Castle, Stratford-Upon-Avon, and Oxford:

Warwick Castle, which has fun medieval displays and re-enactments, wax figures of Henry VIII and his six wives, and birds of prey.

Taken from the ramparts of Warwick: very nice grounds with a little river, sheep in the fields, and peacocks.

Shakespeare's house in Stratford

Oxford. We saw Christ Church, the square where they shot the first race scene in "Chariots of Fire," the pub where Bill Clinton liked to play his saxophone, and the other lovely buildings.  Also where Harry Potter was filmed. It reminded me of Princeton.

All of these sights were strung together by rolling green hills, hedgerows, grazing sheep, pig farms,  and houses with thatched roofs.  I'm glad I got to see it all!