Vive la France

You probably already know that I'm a bit of a francophile. There is just something about the culture, food, fashion, and mood in France that I absolutely love. Well here's a couple more things to add to the list. I arrived at the airport in Toulouse a bit lost trying to figure out where my bags would turn up. I stopped to ask a nice looking young woman where the carousel with my bags was and she stopped me to say how much she liked the top I was wearing. She touched part of the attached scarf and repeated again how nice my top was. In all of my travels, I have never been able to master the art of looking half decent getting off of a place, be it a one hour or twelve hour flight. So you have no idea how elated I was to hear that I was not looking too worse for the wear.

After taking a conference call and dropping my bags off at the hotel, I went directly into the main town center. The taxi driver said that he would drop me off in the main area where there was an outdoor market and I could eventually walk along some alleys with nice shops on my way to dinner. As soon as I peaked into the open market I caught sight of a kind-looking ederly woman frying fresh churros at a stand nearby. Considering they're of Spanish origin I was a bit surprised to see churros in France. But if Catherine de Medici can steal the secrets of fine Italian cooking and bring them to France, then why not churros as well. Since my dinner reservations were a couple hours away I decided that a small bag of fresh churros as a snack wouldn't hurt.

I did manage to get lost down a few alleys with cute French shops that took me in circles for quite some time eventually landing me on the street where I would find dinner. I had done some research before heading to Toulouse and had decided that my one "nice" meal would be at the Brasserie de Beaux-Arts which sits above the bank of La Garonne River. Although the typical dish of this region is cassoulet, I decided that on a warm summer's day it would be too heavy to have a cassorole consisting of beans, sausage, goose fat, duck fat, pork, lamb and so on. Instead I pondered all of the fresh seafood on the menu. If you've ever been to a restaurant with me then you know it's impossible for me to order off of a normal menu (if you've seen When Harry met Sally, I'm definitely Sally). I usually want one of everything or I want something from one dish and something from another dish, but never what is being offered strictly on the menu. True to form when the waiter came over and asked what I'd like to have, I gave him a blank stare. We at least narrowed my choices down to seafood and he suggested a starter of 6 prawns or 6 raw oysters. I kept going back and forth and then asked if I could get 3 of each. He paused for a moment and said sure, for you, we'll do it! See why I love the French? After some more debate on the mains we decided on one of the specials which was a lobster salad with blanched almonds, haricot verts, mango slices, lettuces, and a tart dressing. Sad to say though that I was so full after all of this that I ended my meal without dessert but had an amazing cafe instead. They did manage to scrounge up a madeleine to go with it so I did have something sweet to end with after all.

After dinner I walked along La Garonne River where my taxi driver had said there would be dancing and music on the other side of the bank. After awhile though my torn ACL started to bother me so I had to call it an early night. At least I have one more happy memory of France stored away.