Inn of the Wandering Dragon

Between the shifting colours on the walls and the nature sounds piped in over the speakers, this is actually pretty surreal in comparison to the rest of the airport!

At last! I am finally sitting down to share my latest travels... (The cat is aware of this of course and conveniently parks his butt in front of the monitor as I try to type this.)
Honestly - it was one of those trips for getting bounced around by the airlines. We had called the cab to take us to the airport, our bags on the front step waiting to go and then the phone rings. Our flight has been changed, we are now leaving 4 hours later. During our layover in Frankfurt we found our gate and sat down with our books to wait, only to find no staff and no other passengers ever showed up to the gate - that too had been changed (as we discovered about 25 minutes prior to departure). Announcements had rung out at regular intervals in both German and English but when they kept to that very fine line of "is it recorded? is it live?" it became fairly easy to tune them out. I'm partially deaf after a flight anyway so really, would it have made any difference? Fortunately it was only a difference of walking down the hall. Anyone who has been to a large airport with multiple terminals can imagine the joy in running from one terminal to the other (been there - not fun)!
We arrived in Toulouse on schedule and called our friends to get their address. As they were unable to meet us at the airport we would take a cab into the city. Mental note for any future trips - calling from a payphone to a cell phone is not cheap! I did manage to get the whole address written down before getting cut off.
Taxis queue under a small overpass and come out one at a time to collect passengers. I did notice that all the taxis were clean and well kept, which made me wonder if there are similar by-laws in Toulouse as in Calgary (as in your car cannot be more than x years old to pick up at the airport). Our driver was polite but not talkative, and I'm not sure if that was because of perceived language barriers or if culturally they are just not talkative with their fares? Back home it's practically unheard of to have a driver who does not try to strike up conversation.
Kim and Cedric's apartment overlooks a quiet street not far from the botanical garden. Kim and I had not seen each other for several months so we're thrilled to meet up again. Cedric gives me the traditional cheek to cheek. I never know what to expect with those kinds of things and I have made the mistake in the past of turning the wrong time/way and either bonking heads or getting a surprise kiss on the lips. No such mistakes this time though. As we did not arrive until the evening we just relaxed in the apartment with a few snacks and talked about our flights and what there was to do in Toulouse. Kim and Cedric had just come back from a trip to Portugal - which they tell us was fantastic! Needless to say we were all pretty tired so it wasn't long before the makeshift bed was set up and everyone was getting ready for sleep. The adventures would have to wait until morning.

I'm happy to say my experiment with the morrocan recipie has turned out well. It is an assortment of veggies (celery, onion, yam), millet (grain) and spices. The spices come across quite subtle since it is simmered with a couple slices of lemon so the lemon taste dominates (but not overpoweringly so). I did forget to add the lentils but even so the soup is filling. This will be another recipie to keep.

I have just spent the afternoon cooking up a storm for my detox. Soups were the thing today and after creating a vegtable broth I put together one of my favorites - carrot/ginger soup. I'm also trying a new recipe for a morrocan vegtable and grain soup. The emphasis was on getting as much made as possible so I'll have to let you know tomorrow how the morrocan soup turned out. There was also a request for the boyfriend's favorite curry lentil dish so there should now be enough of that to keep him happy for a while. He is not doing the detox with me although he does not mind trying the food on occasion. As for myself, after a rough first few days I'm starting to feel better about the whole thing. But I am still craving bread like mad.

Friday night saw a last minute invite to supper with some good friends. On the way we quickly picked up the now developed photos and did not notice until much later at home that the requested cd's of images were not present. It turns out the developer forgot? At any rate that means I can't post anything quite yet since I do not have a scanner (yes, yes I know I should get my butt into the 21 century). Having a look through the photos however has shown me that my trusty camera is getting less trusty and I think a new camera will be on the list for Christmas. But I still have some lovely shots to enjoy in the meantime. Heaven only knows when they will all get sorted into an album (along with postcards, tickets etc.