Day 35: Toulouse

July 15, 2012

I’d like to tell you that something exciting happened today, but really, it didn’t. It’s probably just as well, after yesterdays “excitement.” That was enough “excitement” to last a while. Besides, I still have my cold. But I did force myself up and out to explore the town.

And I’m glad I did. I stopped at a Sunday market and sampled all kinds of local cheeses and street food. I looked at cool things like fresh vanilla beans. I’ve never seen real vanilla beans before. They smelled great! I almost bought some, but I have no idea what to do with them, and the vendor didn’t speak English to explain it.

After the market I walked around, all over town. People were out enjoying the day and, despite my cold, I had a great time.

Actually, one potentially exciting thing happened. When I was leaving my room this morning, to go down to the bakery, I noticed that the door to my room didn’t lock. It was one of those doors where you slide the card to open the door, and by accident I pushed on the handle and notice I could open the door with our without a key.

I went to the front desk and was told, “the door must be broken. I will have to put you in another room.” Which was fine, especially since she put me in a bigger, nicer room.

So, the “potential” excitement would have been coming back to my room to find all of my things gone. But that’s a little TOO much excitement, don’t you think? It also taught a valuable lesson—check the handle of the door without the card key to make sure it locks!

But as for the day, a picture is worth a thousand words. And since you don’t want you to read a thousand boring words, I’ll show you my pictures...