It's Summer in the City

On Friday morning Chloé and I woke up extremely early to take the train to Toulouse to see our dear friend, Kévin. We had the usual difficulties getting out of bed...which involve Chloé whining for a good 10 minutes and me crawling on all fours towards the kitchen (but this was scheduled into our time frame). Of course we were 10 minutes late... but we made the bus on time. We had no time to buy tickets...which usually wouldn't be a problem, but this time of course we were fined (but the finers were nice and only fined us half of the usual penalty because of our train circumstances...I think it was about 30 euros...enough to make us always buy tickets but not as bad as the 60 euro fine we'd have had otherwise). We made the train! And then 4 hours later we arrived in sunny Toulouse. I must admit that when the train stopped in places like Nîmes and Montpellier I was really disappointed that I couldn't leave the train and walk around - but I will be sure to make it back there soon (it's not very far from Lyon on the high speed train).

We found Kévin, had a fantastic, well-priced lunch and then left him so he could go back to work...and Chloé and I went exploring in the city. Well, we intended to explore the city. It was so ridiculously hot that we made it as far as the 10th century church and then had to get out of the heat. We opted for a café opposite the church - which we hoped would be air conditioned, would have cold drinks etc. I was SO excited about the prospect of a smoothie. SO EXCITED. This so called 'smoothie' was juice that had been thrown into a blender - not even any milk! And our cups weren't even filled up! They charged us 2.50 euros for each one as well! Anyway, we stayed in the café for a few hours and then went to the church. It was surprisingly, comfortably cool in the church and the paintings and relics within were astonishing. There were still paintings within that had been done in the 10th century! To get to another part of the church there was a small admission fee that we were prepared to pay. The guy at the counter said 'are you students?' so we said yes, and then he let us in for free - which apparently doesn't usually happen. Check this out.

Toulouse is a cute little town with lots of people and sweet little windows and renaissance sculptures like this one here.

For people in Australia who are currently not enjoying the winter months, I feel for you - really. I can't stand winter...but while you're busy dreaming about summer... let me remind you how awful it can be. Take, for example, exhibit A to remind you:

After a day of walking in the heat and having no little beach, pool or a mere shadow to be at a normal temperature in - this is what happens....

It was here that I taught Chloé the expression 'desperate times call for desperate measures'

Still not convinced that super hot weather is no better than cold weather? Look at this one. It was taken after 10pm at night....IT WAS MORE THAN 30 DEGREES! AT NIGHT! NIGHT TIME! NO SUN! Check out the guy's face behind me.

And here you see, for the finale, IT IS HOT -

So, in spite of the heat, we are TRYING to enjoy our time here in this town with Kévin. Today we had lunch out, saw a film (in a room without air conditioning in 38 degree heat), spent a lot of time on public transport and listened to each other complain about the heat (expect Kévin and Chloé kept saying 'we can't complain! It'll be snowing soon'. I am trying not to think about snow for now....

So sloppy, sweaty hugs from stinking hot Toulouse. One day left here and then I'm off on a YSA camp (with church) near Switzerland, in the alps for 5 days. Until then, :-)