14 June 2010 Sunday

01:38 Toulouse

(Photos)

I apologize in advance for rather spewing out the contents of my weekend.  They went in at random; they may as well get back out in a similar fashion.

Saturday evening (and by evening we mean from maybe eight until around two) we went to a benefit dinner out in Le Fucking Nowhere (a village known as Bonrepos Sur Aussonnelle).  This small village puts on a benefit dinner for a fund which helps the local children to study abroad.  Eric has friends out there and makes new friends easily; we were a hit.  I had mistakenly left my camera behind when we left the apartment and that bummed me out, but the evening was was grand adventure regardless.

We were four (Eric, Julien and Maëlys, and myself).  We met loads of folks who live there and many folks in the aerospace industry (Airbus has works in Toulouse).  The wine was good and the music was an interesting combination of different cultural classics (including an AC/DC track) from around the globe.

If you want to know more about the association you can visit the blog maintianed by Muriel, De Bonrepos à… Tout Enfant Vivant Ailleurs or TEVA.

What a wonderful way to discover a new place.  We all had a great time, and I got to see a fabric of life in France that would otherwise have been utterly unaccessible to an American tourist.

Saturday morning we started by driving over to the Capitolium (Le Capitol) downtown.  We partked in the parking garage under the square.  There was a band playing in the square, playing (obscure to me) songs in English.  There was also a wedding in progress in the Capitolium and so we couldn’t tour the whole building.  Nous retournerons.  “I hope 2010 will be a good year for you, my friend, but at the mid-point it ain’t too bad”.  Yes, Eric; I concur.

We also ran into a group of Frenchies giving away free hugs on the capitol grounds.  Free is a nice price to pay for a hug.  We left before they kicked us out for fondling les Toulousainne.

We rather just wandered around, me sight seeing and Eric with his mental list of new apartment shit, and let the winds carry us which ever way it was willing.

We visited a crepe stand and talked to the couple who have run that stand for 35 years.  They are a minor celebrity here as they and their stand appear in a book on world cuisine.  I’ll try to dig up the title later.  Nous retournerons.

Also we dropped in to make a brief visit to a friend of Eric.  Her name is Sonia and she is about as stunning as my eyes could stand.  Polish and Tunisian by blood, and French (even Parisian) in her soul.  She was beautiful; her cohorts were beautiful; there is so much eye candy here I need to brush my eyes regularly to avoid cavities.  Ah, for A Night in Tunisia…

Afterwards we found Julien and Maëlys, piled into  the car, and made our way out into the countryside to find the aforementioned little village.  Oh, I found some notes about what we had out there.

There was a punch which consisted (according to my taste buds) of cinamon, orange, and rum.  They served curried lentils as an entrée, then the main course was a simple chicken and rice, and finally the dessert was a yogurt, coconut, and fruit concoction.  We had some label-less red wine because we all preferred to have red.  The village is located in Gers (that’s a department or county near Gers).

Also I found out an interesting association.  The parents of Maëlys live in the village depicted (and used for filming) from Le Retour de Martin Guerre.

I made a brief note also about the music at the association benefit.

“A fascinating mix of French, Spanish, and American hits.  It’s all about the groove but they don’t quite get the groove.  It’s almost like they are one groove over trying to see [into] the next valley [through] the mountain peaks.”  [02:16 AM; on the drive back]

I should add a little to that.  I liked the music more than what I would expect to find here.  The reason is that here there would be a pile of useless, grooveless 80’s music choking normal folks and encouraging zombies to twitch.  Is my bias showing through?  Anyway, this music was generally dance-able; I merely take issue with the jagged segues.  Again, we all had a good time.

Dropped J & M off and headed back out to Bonnefoy.  Eric has been having this problem with his passenger window and it picked this lousy opportunity to fall off track.  We jury-rigged it near enough to closed for the night and hauled anything and everything out of the car (just in case).

So that was more or less Saturday.

I thought about getting up early on Sunday, but since we didn’t even get back here until three something that didn’t come about.  I don’t know, maybe I got up around half past ten.  Eric and I talked a little about the window problem.  He’ll have to call the insurance folks and visit a glass shop on Monday.  Annoying.

I left him to manage some paperwork for his job and also to call the insurance people. (Insurance here is handled by banks, but he was able to call them on a Sunday for whatever reason.)  I walked down Bonnefoy toward the center of town to visit Julien who agreed to walk around with me and show me whatever we could see near his place in the afternoon.

Bonnefoy changes names a few times and makes some interesting turns, but finally after only a handful of errors and unnecessary switchbacks I found chez Julien.  They were just waking up from the afternoon (after lunch) nap.  I felt a little bad but he assured me I was right on time.  We walked around the city center for a couple of hours at least.

We visited Jardin des Plantes (essentially a well manicured park in three parts).  We also stopped into the courtyard of the there contained natural history museum for some new tastes.  I had a cider from Breton, a juice (apple, grapefruit, and something else), and a little sweet called clairfruit (like a custard with whole cherries baked in).  The cider was dry (it came it doux and brut; I took brut) and had a very unique flavor.  Not what I have come to expect from hard (apple) cider.

Walking through the ancient streets of Toulouse you can see the brilliance of hundreds of years of architects and other builders.  It gets hot here.  Sunday it was hot (25.5 C or 77.9 F), and this is only June.  They have built the buildings close together leaving narrows openings for the passage of air and to ensure shade and to control humidity.  The places where the sun was slowing us down and driving the water from deep in our bones to the surface of our skin were only the exposed places: the squares, the boulevards.

Julien knew his neighborhood very well and he took me down some of the smallest streets and around such peculiar corners; it was a promenade of delight for one with my particular tastes.  And of course when it is near 80 degrees those femmes toulousainne ne portent pas boucoup.  In the battle between skin and cloth, skin was winning for the day.  Vive la revolution!

Finally we stopped for a quick beer at an English pub, one where Eric and I had stopped on my first night in, and then back to Julien’s place.  He explained to me the five stages of the day as concerns the stomach.  You begin your day with le petit dejouner (like a light breakfast; sweets and coffee typically), then around say ten you have collation (maybe some fruit or bread or something else small), then comes dejouner (lunch, usually big followed by a nice nap under ideal conditions) at say 12:30, then comes the goûter around five (basically a little snack of fruit or cheese or sweets or what have you), and finally dinêr around nine in the South and a little earlier as you move North.

Of course since it was after five we went back to his place for goûter.  We had some brioche, some cherries, some cookies with raspberry jelly (they looked like tiny tarts), and two wines.  We had another Corbières and a Bordeaux (which remended me of certain Pinot Noirs I’ve had from Oregon though it contained no Pinot grapes).

He then introduced me to a show called Kaamelott.  It’s a humorous episodic retelling of the Arthurian legend.  The episodes are maybe ten minutes each and it ran for five seasons.  Since there were no subtitles I did lose some of the humor because humor requires a more adept understanding the language, but I was able to follow along well enough and will try to find it in English when I get back home.

I think I had pretty much exhausted Julien and so I made my way back toward Bonnefoy so I could get in a quick rinse in the shower and think about the next meal.  We ordered sushi delivered.  Though I admire a city where sushi can be delivered, you don’t fly 9000 miles to France to eat sushi.  There is a reason for that.  It was a rather like Safeway sushi.  I’m a bit spoiled living so much closer to Japan and having such a large Asian population with food passions.  But they delivered.  It was excellent.  Or it would have been had we not had to wait hours for it.

Don’t get me wrong here; the delivery folks did their job.  They prepare it to order and so it took them just under forty-five minutes to put it through our door.  The problem arose when Eric’s friend Jeff arrived about thirty seconds before the food.

Well, again I should offer some more details.  Eric has looking for this and that as is so famously his way, and it took nearly two hours for him to decide what we would order and how to order it and how to pay for it and who knows what else.  So we finally got the food ordered and I was busy rejoicing, thinking of the inevitable rise in my blood sugar that was coming within forty-five minutes.

But during the looking phase, you remember that bit that took not minutes but hours, Eric had also talked to his friend Jeff.  Jeff was on his way over.  It was a race.  Jeff won.  My stomach took the bronze.  I passed out never knowing who took the silver.

Politeness would not allow us to eat until we had sufficiently socialized with Jeff and his companions.  Sufficiently here means until they departed of their own freewill.  My stomach retired, resolving to get its revenge at a later date.

Jeff was pretty hip.  A restaurant industry person.  His girlfriend is named Florienne and they arrived also with her sister, XXXXXXXX.  Both girls have the beauty hanging on them like a smooth diaphanous film.

They were all pretty nice folks.  All from this area.  The accent here is a sing-song accent and it’s a little more difficult for me to understand it.  Répétez, s’il vous plaît.

They left. We ate.  We retired.  That was Sunday.

20:23 Monday

14 June 2010 Toulouse

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Organize for the day.  No shower necessary because I douched upon return last evening.  Out into the rain.  What happened to too hot?  Bah.  I’m from Seattle.  This is barely rain and it feels warm enough not to bother.  Was probably even still a bit too warm for most.  If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times: I’d rather be too hot than too cold.  Merci, Toulouse.

We went to the car glass place (conveniently called Carglass) and found that it’s a mechanical problem they can’t deal with.  Seems all these excellent German car makers are using this stupid little plastic part in the window mechanism (a common failure for BMW, Audi, Mercedes, &c).  We will have to go to a dealer or a parts place and get the part and have some mechanic fix it.  Not happening today.  The glass dude totally hooked us up by putting the glass back in a closed position.  No more passenger window.  C’est la view.

We went into a grocery to fill up le frigo.  All sorts of stuff.  Now we can eat our snack meals here with ease.  We also picked up a squeegee for keeping the terrace surface clear of standing water (well, once it stops raining).

Then we went downtown again and visited the Musee des Augustins.  Fucking wow.  Old (and current) church.  Possibly a monastery or abbey or cloister or some such originally.  Now it’s mostly museum.  The church part was closed today.  At least the door was locked.  Maybe they saw us coming?

I recognized several pieces from art history classes, but it was overwhelming to suffer (pleasantly) the inundation of works of art lining the walls and halls of this ancient building.  Yes, fucking wow indeed.  Three euros well spent.

Wandered all over some more.  Finally got a card reader so I can offload images to my lappy (and subsequently upload them).  I’ll likely just vomit them onto some snapshot posting site in daily buckets, but it’s coming.  Raw and dangerous.

It’s snack time for now though.  We shall see what the remainder of the evening has to offer.

23:13 Monday

14 June 2010 Toulouse

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Quiet evening.  I maybe am wearing poor Eric out.  As is famous enough I don’t sleep much.  I have this odd ability to just stay awake.  I wonder if I could set a world’s record, but why would I want to?  Fuck that.

Anyway, we had some new (to me) cheeses and beverages so I’ll tell you a little about that before I hit the sack.

We had a cheese called bamalou.  I don’t know maybe it’s textured similar to fontaine or gouda.  Tasty.  We also had a cheese product called Boursin, which I have had in Seattle.  This was a cow cheese mixed with garlic and herbs.  We spread it on bread, but you can also use it in cooking or whatever.  Nice.

When we were at the store earlier we picked up some encased meats and we tried the saucisse sèche de canard, that’s right duck salami.  When I was walking with Julien in the public gardens on Sunday I saw some of the ducks.  Several varieties I had never seen before.  One was enormous.  They even have these little duck condos for the ducks that live in the garden.

Where was I?  Oh, yeah, encased.  Not bad at all.  So nice to see the love of duck taken to such a fine art.

We drank a beer called Jenlain Ambrée (biere de garde).  Julien called it a beer for winos, but Eric defended it and I did my best drunkard drinking imitation.  We also drank a different Fronton (Carte Noire) for comparison I suppose.  I liked both of them well enough.

We also ate a banana.  It really changed the direction of the Fronton from, say, the canard.  This is what I really love about wine.  It responds to its companions in novel and complex ways.  Drink wine and eat food.  The wines you drink were meant to be drunk with food.  Don’t short change yourself.  Experiment.  Some things will be better than others, and some things will evoke flavors never anticipated.

Good luck with that.

I’m either going to shave and then go to bed or just go directly to bed depending on how tired I feel when I get close to the mattress.  Eric, can you guess?, is laid out on the couch.

I know there is a bunch of shit I am forgetting to tell you about.  That’s life though.  I’ll try to fill in the gaps, but guess there was even more adventure than you see here.  And the women are so beautiful it’s breaking my heart.

I think yes, either les canards ou les femmes: one of them will touch me and I will be lost forever.

Oh, I forgot to tell you about lunch today.  We stopped at a restaurant called L’Entrecôte.  They serve one dish: L’Entrecôte (literally, between the ribs) with les pommes frites (these were what we might call shoe string fries).  We had that, me rare and Eric not so rare, and some Bordeaux.  I, at Eric’s recommendation , tried one of their desserts called profiteroles.  Basically vanilla ice cream, these little donut/cookies called choucuettes, and chocolate sauce.  The meat was amazingly tender which is precisely why they are famous.  Amazing to think of a restaurant that makes one dish every day.  The only menu they have is the dessert list and you could write that on the back of your hand (if you were so inclined).  Yet the place was packed on a Monday.  Has been for years.

Ok, that’s it.  Bed time.

13:49 Tuesday

15 June 2010 Toulouse

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Got up early and corresponded from bed.  Then showered and left the apartment so Eric could manage some more paper work.

I walked down to the Tuesday market here in Bonnefoy and bought a little goat cheese, some bread, and some different duck salami.  I haven’t tried the cheese or the bread yet, but the sausage tastes a bit of cumin and is slightly spicy.  I got pictures of all three stands but only the bread man wanted his picture taken.

Then I went for a walk.  I just picked a street and started wandering.  There is a secondary school close by and I took some pictures around there.

Oh, I also bought a chocolatine from the bread man.  I ate that while walking near the school.

Then I picked a new street and walked in the other direction.  To the NW of Rue du Foubourg-Bonnefoy there are a bunch of nice houses with gardens.  I met a lonely dog who slipped his paw under the gate so I could pet him.  I also met a few people who were very friendly and said hello.

Finally I met some real estate people.  I talked with two of them at some length about many things.  Turns out the young man has a cousin in Portland.  The young man and I shot a picture together and I left them to whatever real estate business they had.

Seems women here, like everywhere, don’t want to be in pictures.  That will make my new idea to take pictures of everyone I talk with rather difficult.

Eventually made my way back here.  Lots of wrong turns down dead end streets.  Ate one of the duck sausages to test it out.  Yummy but not my favorite.

Now we are trying to sort out a plumbing problem.  We thought we had it sorted out the other day.  We have installed both the washing machine and the dish washer, but for some reason the drains appear to be blocked in one particular area so we can run either one or the other but we cannot attach them both because of the blockage.  We’ll sort that out at some point.  Every new space has its unique problems I guess.

It’s closing in on two so we’ll likely eat lunch soon.  Though we may have to run after a plumbing tool which will likely throw our schedules off.  But damn it, I’m hungry.

Later.

18:07 Wednesday

16 June 2010 Toulouse

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We hit the pizza place across the street both because we’ve been meaning to and because we are waiting for a call from the plumber.  We each ordered a different pizza (33 cm and not 29 cm).  I had one called capricciosa (sauce tomate, jambon, artichaut grille, mozzarella, huile d’olive, olives) and Eric ordered a bolognaise (sauce tomate, oignon, boeuf, emmental, origan).  They were both quite excellent with a paper thin crust.

We drank a bottle of Bardolino Chiaretto Classico (a rose from Italy; 2009 Cesari).

All together the meal and wine totaled about thirty euros and we left stuffed.

However, before we left we met a fascinating lady who asked if she could steal my pizza while I was still inside.  Of course Eric said it wasn’t his.  We talked and laughed with her on the sidewalk until she walked on her way and we ate our food.  It’s nice eating on the sidewalk like this.

The sun came out while we were waiting for our pizza.  It was hot and nice when we came back to the apartment, and the plumber came and conquered the blocked drain.  Baby steps.  Loads of laundry running regular now.  We also got the call telling us our tickets for the concert this evening were secured.  We would leave to meet at Julien’s about seven.

21:04 Wednesday

Oh, those well laid plans of mice and men… we left the pad to climb in the car and head to the show in spite of the fact that it has started really raining.  There was thunder and lighting and the rain was coming down in buckets.

Eric’s car started having this issue recently were his alarm system stops, randomly, allowing the car starting.  “All this shit went wrong right before you got here; I’m sorry Jim”.  While Eric was fucking with the alarm (and I was writing in my notebook) we received a call announcing that the show was dead due to inclement weather.  (I so much prefer intimate weather.)

Gave up on the alarm and walked back to the homestead.  Eric wanted to stay in but I was hoping to spend at least a little time out where there might be girls.  I took a reconnaissance walk down Bonnefoy to find a place that might work.  The late night activity is really all downtown here.  The local pubs are geared toward the work day nips and dinner time supplements.

I found a place on the corner near the canal which stays open until midnight and looks like it has dancing.  No, I don’t dance; but girls do and you’ll remember that was the point.

Returned home full of useful information.  Nice change.  We ate some bread, some saucisse sèche, some more of that Médoc, and some cod livers from a tin (foie de morue gout fume; riche en oméga 3; Balthor).  Even in defeat we celebrate.

This radio station is still excellent company.  One song goes “he’s got barbed wire in his underpants” and “oh, mama!” and it’s followed by a reggae version of “A Whiter Shade of Pale”.  How can you argue with that?

“Let’s open this, Jim.  I really don’t feel like seeing people right now.  I want to get this shit fixed.”  So we opened a bottle of Les Compagnons du Château La Grave Béchade Côtes-de-Duras and I wrote this blog post while Eric did his taxes on-line.

We’ll try for some excitement tomorrow.  We should be leaving for Orleans Friday morning.  In the meantime we are going to attempt getting the electronic alarm problem fixed and there is also an electrical problem in the apartment (which was anticipated).  “Tomorrow will be an electrical day, Jimbo!”.

Problem solvers are we.

17 June

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Eric and I went downtown to wander around before his meeting with his (former) HR people.  We spent some time in the garden of plants (where I had previously visited with Julien) and saw a peacock (le paon) and some other birds.  Love the pretty birds.

After that we went out to Colomiers to have a bite to eat on our way to where Eric used to work.  We stopped at a restaurant Eric knew and had a nice meal.

The salad course was a simple green salad with a vinaigrette accompanied by melon and white port (for dipping or dousing the melon).  We drank Ricard (of course) then a palatable house red.

For the main course Eric had trout and I had beef with lardon.  Then Eric had a cheese course (with which I assisted) and I had a couple of deserts that looked interesting (a kind of chocolate lava cake and a sort of compote with fruit).

All in all quite an excellent repast.

We visited his work where I met several people and tried to nap in a chair in Nelly’s office.  That went ok because she likes naps too (I think), which is to say she didn’t try to talk to me very much and let me close my eyes whenever they happened to do so.  After a meal like that a little nap really is in order.

After that paperwork was all signed and ready to go, Eric and I split back for Bonnefoy.  Once we got back we took a little walk around the neighborhood.  Ostensibly seeking a used store where we might find a lamp, but really just wandering around familiarizing ourselves with his neighborhood.

As we meandered we found an art space that does both visual and audio arts (such as sculpture and music) and promised to return when their new show was up after our visit to the countryside.  They seemed like cool people and the space is great, so I’m looking forward to seeing what it’s like when it’s in gear.

The guy we talked to at the art space told us about a fountain in a nearby park which featured the alphabet (font) they had developed based on triangles.  We walked around the corner to the park and took a look around.  The fountain was nice but I can’t say I’ve deciphered the font as yet.  I think they have the font posted somewhere and I’ll try to post a link for that at some point.

On our way back to chez Eric we stopped in to see his landlord.  Her surname is Mazas and her family is very old to Bonnefoy.  Her house is in the oldest building in Bonnefoy and it’s on the corner of Rue de Mazas.  She gave us a nice tour of her place and we talked about castles and electricians.

Why electricians?  I may have already mentioned that the electrical wiring in Eric’s place is a bit wonky, and the previous night Eric was changing a bulb and shorted a lamp as he twisted the bulb out.  This killed the lights in the kitchen, the toilet, and his bedroom.  The fuse box (yes, fuse box) has no markings so we were at a loss to determine which fuse might be in need of assistance.

Anyway, she promised to get an electrician over to the apartment while we were off in the country, and apologized for the lighting (which she doesn’t like and would prefer changed).

Since we were delayed from leaving for an extra day it gave us another opportunity to visit the music festival.  Today was the official first day of the festival and we went down that evening to have a go at it.

We stood in a long line for tickets, and Eric didn’t notice that though he asked for two tickets she only sold him one.  I quickly pointed it out and we were ushered to a special window for problems where we were able to buy a second ticket without standing in line again.

We met with Nelly and Patric who were already inside.  We had a great snack consisting of red wine, cured meats, tomatoes, olives, and baguette.  Damn, what a great fair snack.  Take that elephant ears.

Johnny Clegg was the headliner (and the act we had hoped to see the previous night) and all the music was pretty good.

We also ran into Jeff at the booth for his restaurant and we helped to drink some of their beer (a kind of white beer).  Such a rough evening.

18 June

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The large part of today was spent driving from Toulouse to Orleans.  We made a couple of stops along the way and one of those is really important.

We stopped at a village known as Oradour-sur-Glane which is really two villages now.  One new where all the people live, and one lying in ruins which stands as its own memorial.

According  to Eric a Panzer division with orders to move toward Normandy in anticipation of a suspected allied invasion and with additional orders to make an example should they encounter any resistance, encountered resistance (presumably) and make an example of Oradour-sur-Glane.

Many of the villagers were herded into the church along with cans of gasoline, the doors barred, and set alight.  The entire village was burned and any remaining humans were killed.  Only a handful survived by having been far out in the fields when this all took place and thus able to hide and avoid discovery.

The entire village was left untouched and simply labeled Remember.  So next time you think “Remember the Alamo” you can think also about Oradour-sur-Glane.  A disquieting but important visit.

We also stopped at a strangely excellent rest stop.

Finally we routed through Floeury les Aubrais (where Eric grew up and where his mom’s shoe store was for so many years).  There we stopped and bought a bouquet of flowers for Flo.

When we arrived at chez Olivier and Florence (Flo), I again got the full tour (they all must think me mad taking pictures of everything I see) and fell in love with their cavernous bath room.  One day I will bathe there with the assistance of three or four village girls and wine.  I have simple tastes.

The evening was spent at a barbecue for the building.  In attendance were Eric et moi, Olivier et Florence, Manon et Hugo; Dominique (widower of Olivier’s sister) and his son Antoine; Stefan and his wife; Michel (metre d’ouvre) et Caroline; and some other children whose names escape me.

Dinner consisted of pork skewers (with tomato, bell pepper); a kind of pasta salad; a zucchini sauce; and Côte de boeuf.  This was accompanied by copious amounts of wine (eight bottles for twelve people), champagne, ricard, scotch, eu de vie de poirre, and maybe some other stuff (it all gets a little hazy at some point).

After a nice meal and a visit (for no apparent reason) to the dirt cellar I suggested we take a little stroll around the neighborhood (you all know how I love to walk).  So we filled our glasses and ventured out into the Orléans night where we met a group of four youths in a small square just around the corner.

They were rolling a joint with blends of hash and weed (no tobacco) so we stayed with them to help keep them out of trouble and to enjoy their company, and besides what one really needs after a night of opulent eating and drinking is a bit of marijuana.  Another group of their friends arrived and we all talked and joked and laughed together.

All very happy we said goodnight to our companions and made our way back home with our empty glasses to discover what sheets feel like anew around three in the morning.