albi: part 2

Third stop: Maison Natale de Toulouse-Lautrec

Toulouse-Lautrec's childhood home isn't far from the museum, so we ran up the street and saw it. It's not really a tourist attraction. People still live there; there's just a plaque by the door saying Toulouse-Lautrec's childhood home (only in French, of course).

Fourth Stop: crepe stand!

We bought delicious nutella crepes from a surly crepe stand guy, who did not put nearly enough nutella on Noemi's crepe. Side note: I have never once seen a crepe rolled up like we do in the US. They're always folded, either in a triangle or in a rectangle.

Fifth Stop: St. Salvi Cloister

I love, love, love cloisters. This one was very small, but absolutely adorable. It had a big herb garden in the middle, so it smelled so good in there.

Sixth Stop: cute little kitchen stuff store

I have a weakness for cute kitchen stuff. This store happened to have the perfect carafe d'eau that I've been searching and searching and searching for since I left Paris. No matter that I paid 10 euro for an empty glass bottle, and that it'll add at least a pound to the weight of my suitcase...the lady who rang me up asked where I was from and when I said the US, she told me how she had just been in Chicago with her husband. We then had a nice little conversation and at the end she complimented my French. Victory!

I've found that for the most part, my feelings after a conversation have nothing to do with content and everything to do with how well I just spoke French. For example, on Friday we had 5 visits, which is way, way more than our usual 3. We thought it was going to be too hard to get to everyone and be able to spend enough time chatting with them, so I called up Madame Cacheux to see if we could switch her to Monday afternoon instead. She was way ticked because apparently Pierre had already changed the date of her visit a couple times, so I ended up being like, "Ok, fine, we'll find the time to come visit you today as planned." Bad outcome, yeah? More work for us. But. For the duration of the entire conversation I was speaking awesome French; she understood me, and I understood her. When I hung up the phone I was smiling. 

Anyone who's picked up a second language ever feel that way? 

albi: part 1

Albi is about an hour away from Toulouse by train. It is famous for its beautiful brick cathedral, Saint-Cecile, and for being the home of the artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

First stop: Saint Cecile

Brick is a very common building material in Toulouse, and I think south western France in general, but we had yet to see a cathedral made out of brick. St. Cecile is, and it’s huge! The interior is painted, wall to wall to ceiling, in gorgeous, bright colors. The ceiling paint is all original from the middle ages. I couldn’t believe how colorful it was! It was also kind of cool because there was a huge wedding going on when we got there so we listened to their vows and also got to hear the organ play “Ave Maria”. Awesome acoustics. 

Second Stop: Musee Toulouse-Lautrec

This museum houses a ton of the artist’s work. The building is called the Palais de Berbie and was completed in the 13th century. Behind it is this incredible little garden and a great view of the river Tarn. It was kinda funny, because as we were leaving we saw the couple from the cathedral. Talk about a great location for wedding photos. Unfortunately no pictures were allowed inside at all, but he is famous for lithographic prints for Moulin Rouge, as well as some really cool paintings.