A weekend with the Parents

On Friday my parents came to Toulouse to visit the city and the surrounding area on the one hand and to bring my some winter cloth and additional stuff on the other hand. As they had first planned to arrive in Toulouse late in the night I had planned to go on a Halloween costume party. It was great fun and I met some great people there. A lot of people had really nice costumes, like one of the local guys was styled like the Joker, there were some devils and I went as Dracula. I had a black cape, white shirt and painted my face white. With shoe-polish I emphasized my eyebrows and tried to style my hair. It was ok for the options I had. I went home at about 4am and knew that tomorrow would be a pretty tough day.

I had to meet my parents at 9am and was still very sleepy. We had breakfast in the hotel and then headed out of town to the northwest. We had not very great weather but it still ok. We visited a first village and I think it was pretty average. Though the market was interesting and I got a Opinel (a knife with a folding blade). After that came Gaillac which had some churches and some interesting street but the highlight was really the restaurant we went for lunch: Though it was listed in the guide Michelin it was quite inexpensive. It had a great ambience and the meals where very good. Although the restaurant was know for its long list of regional wines I decided to stay without alcohol (last night’s party and don’t want to drink too often).
We than went to Castelnau de Mont Mireille which I liked very much (not only because of the cool photos) and to Cordes sur ciel. Both are really worth to be visited and you should go on top of the hill facing Cordes to a have a great view on the city on sunset or sunrise.
We had a small dinner back in Toulouse in a crèperie called “Sherpa” which has good prices and for the lovers of tea a selection of 30 different types and flavours.

The night from Saturday to Sunday the clocks were turned back an hour and so I had a long night to catch up sleep from Friday. Saturday night I changed the time on my mobile which I used to wake me up (dam* what’s the English word for “Wecker”?!?!) but unfortunately it changed the time on its own, too. I was an hour late but the hour extra-sleep was good ;-).
This time we went south of Toulouse to Castelnaudary, the origin of the Cassoulet and had it for lunch in a small restaurant in town. The Cassoulet was good but will not list of favourite meals.
We continued to the town of Carcasonne which is famous for its old city complete protected by ramparts. This time the sun came out behind the clouds and we had a great time there. We walked around in the city trough medieval streets and found a store of a local photographer. Most of the pictures were very interesting especially the aerial views of a ruin of a former castle. I will try to get there while I’m in France. I watched the photobook of him but hesitated, as I thought some of the photos in the book were quite average and the theme was not so interesting. We had a drink at one of the bars and I was pretty disappointed when they served my Cappucino: They made a normal French café and put whipped crème on top of it. Sorry my French FOLLOW MAN, but you CAN do better! In every average bar in Germany you’ll find a better coffee. Anyway it was a great day and it ended in a real funny dinner in the “Taverne Bavaroise” (remember the photo in one of my earlier posts). I had very good Moules with average French fries and with that a pint of Paulaner. The Taverne Bavaroise is not very Bavarian by the way, not at all…

On Monday I worked in the morning while my parents had the guided tour at the final assembly line of the A380. I met them at noon and we went to the “Cité de l’espace”. It was interesting there but the entry ticket is rather expensive, though an IMAX film and a presentation at the planetarium was included. The IMAX film “Walking on the moon” was probably the highlight of the visit. It was produced with Tom Hanks (he played a role in “Apollo 13”), the score was made by James Newton Howard (Batman Begins, Dark Knight (with Hans Zimmer) and The day after tomorrow) and some Hollywood stars have given their voice to some persons (like Matt Damon).
To save some money I prepared a small dinner in my flat but it was fun, too. My parents left the next morning to visit some relatives.

(photos will follow..)