Toulouse!

So, as before stated, I went to Toulouse today. Nothing overly exciting, but it was fun.


I rode a train for the first time in my life though!  You want to know the best part about the train ride?  We passed an Ikea!  Alright that wasn't the very best part but it was pretty cool.  I spotted it and then we all talked about how awesome Ikea is for maybe 15 minutes.  We got a compartment to ourselves (rather than the cars that just have rows of seats) so we got to be as loud as we wanted. It was so much fun.  We probably stopped in every town possible between Pau and Toulouse. On the way home we only stopped two places.  Also, for some reason we stopped in the middle of the tracks on the way there and just sat there for half an hour.  And they told us, for our safety, not to try to get off the train.  I can't wait to ride the high-speed train, it's going to be super fun! The train today was so slow... Though, on the high-speed train we have assigned seating so I'll probably not get a nice compartment.


So, Toulouse. Pretty city. I guess my host parents are actually going to Toulouse tomorrow to see their son Julien.  I kinda stuck with the art history class as their teacher led them all over the dang city to look at the architectural structures of churches. I got a couple pictures, they're not too terribly exciting... I'll put them on the sidebar, look for "Toulouse."  I was just there for the sights so I didn't really listen to what their teacher was saying....   He was surprised that we were hungry when we got off the train and asked for a lunch break (oh come on, we were on the train from 8 to 11) but he did give us half an hour to find lunch. He showed us the pretty river and then dragged us to two giant churches and he even got us free admittance to the crypt at the second one because we are "history of art" students.


The first church we went to was enormous, and also was a former monastery, so I have some really nice pictures of the gardens and such, and then the high Gothic ceilings.  The second church was Roman rather than Gothic, and I didn't take a lot of pictures there.


And then we rode the train home, got to town around 18h45. I kind of had no time to find dinner but we went and got dinner anyways. Okay, I'll admit it! We went to McDonald's. I hadn't been to one in France yet and I heard it was different, I wanted to see for myself. We were going to the French fast food restaurant, called "Quick Quality Burgers" but we weren't sure where it was.  I missed the bus from the university but I grabbed the bus to downtown and then from there took the bus home. I love my bus pass.  And getting home is so complicated for me but hey at least I didn't have to take a cab...  So expensive.


Pretty decent day, all in all. Tomorrow I have the house to myself and I probably just get to spend time doing tons of homework. Yay!