la cueillette: meandering

Well friends, I made it. Discount traveling sure can take it out of ya. I flew from Charleston to Dallas, Dallas to Madrid, and Madrid to Toulouse. I then took a bus to the train station, then a train to Albi. The time from leaving my house in Charleston til I got to my house in Albi: about 27 hours. I did actually sleep a bit on the long flight, which is a miracle from God because I'm never able to sleep on planes. The time I spent trying to understand Spanish during my journey made me all the more excited when I finally got to Toulouse and could communicate with people. And thank goodness I could, because figuring out which bus to take to the train station was not exactly intuitive.

You know, French people are way nicer than Americans give them credit for. For example, there were some stairs I had to go up to get to the platform where my train was, and though I could have probably struggled to get everything up there alone, a nice lady offered to help me which made it tons easier. Then, the train itself was a small regional train, so there was no luggage compartment, so I didn't have anywhere to put my stuff. The lady sitting across from me told me I could put my giant suitcase at her feet and not to worry about it. She was there with her son, who was probably the cutest little boy I have ever seen in my life. His name was Isa Bilal. They were from Algeria. She and I chatted for most of the train ride, which was good prep for meeting my family later, since I was pretty jetlagged and having a little bit of a hard time forming complete thoughts, especially in French. Such sweet people.

My American cell phone, as expected, did not work in Toulouse, so I was unable to contact my mom to tell her I got there. Then, I couldn't find an outlet to charge my French cell phone or a Tabac to buy minutes, so I couldn't use it either. I had told the people I'm living with that I would probably get to Albi around 6:30pm (which was an incredible guess on my part...I got there at 6:15), so I just kinda hoped they'd be there to pick me up even though they hadn't heard from me. Aaaaaand of course they weren't. I waited a while, then I started to panic a little bit. I couldn't use a pay phone because they only take French credit cards, and I didn't have internet, so I was 100% helpless...not something you want to be when traveling alone. I was about to burst into tears when I finally asked a lady at the train station if I could use her cell phone to make a local call. Saved!!! So Micka came to pick me up and everything was fine.

Micka and Corrinne are very nice, and extremely hospitable (well, they do have a bed and breakfast, after all). Micka is an incredible cook. They are both dentists, but he's retired so he takes care of the house and whatnot while Corrinne works. And though he plays a traditionally female role in the home, he still thinks that women are irrational and don't know how to do anything. He's nice, but I can't ever tell when he's joking. But anyway he makes homemade bread every day and he makes all the yogurt and whatnot. Amazingggg. And they love cheese (great news!) not that any French family I've ever heard of doesn't. They also love MEAT, so thank goodness I kind of eat that now. I told them I can't eat a ton of red meat, which they seem fine with. Their son François is very shy, but he is 16, so I guess that is to be expected. He plays guitar and is very athletic. I have to force him to speak English with me, which we did for the first time this evening. It was a little awkward because I was having to control the conversation, but overall it went pretty well. I hope eventually we can play some music together...that would be a blast.

So, I live in a mansion. This house is an oasis. I can't believe I get to live here. The room they put me in is great! The only kind of weird thing is that my shower is in the basement. But I'm the only person who uses it, and it's huge. I'll get used to it. And, it seems as though everything is walking distance from here. I spent the day wandering aimlessly around Albi, and I think I maybe saw the whole city. Just walking. The size of it is so perfect for me. I think I might try to get a cheap bike while I'm here. I don't think I'll ever even have to take the bus unless I want to.

Okay that might have been an information overload on all of you who read this, so I'm sorry...further entries will be shorter I promise. Here are some nice pictures. Tomorrow my goal for the day is to find a good place to sit and drink tiny cups of coffee. I don't have anything to do until Sunday, so it's like I'm on vacation. I just have to be careful not to get into the habit of eating croissants every day...