Safely home!

Hi Everyone. We are back in the U.S.

Rich picked us up at the airport.

Lots of movies to watch on our flight.

We had comfortable seats, away from crying babies, near the front.

Running through the airport. We are fast!!!

We arrived at Dulles airport on Wednesday and spent yesterday catching up on our sleep, eating mexican food and trying to figure out how to cure the eye infection that the pond fish now have. The flight back was a little nerve wracking. When we arrived at Toulouse airport, we were told that there was an Air France strike. Our flight was the only Air France flight to leave that morning. Then we only had an hour to make our plane connection to DC when we arrived at Paris CDG airport. We are fast walkers and the aiport is easy to navigate. Our only regret is that we didn't have time for last minute shopping in all the aiport shops.

Now I (Dani) am getting ready to go home, yay! I don't leave until 6pm but I am very excited too see my mom and my Charlie dog and JC. The flight to DC from Paris was so long, I thought we were for sure about to land and then they said there was 3 more hours left. I almost cried like the babies behind us. But today's flight will be fast and easy, and Jud and Leigh are taking me to lunch at a sushi place where there's a conveyor belt, how cool is that. Now I just gotta finish packing!

Last day in Toulouse

Today was our last day in Toulouse. We had a leisurely morning wandering around. There was a big market in front of Place du Capitole. In the late afternoon we drove to a hotel next to the airport. It is a very modern and luxurious hotel, so now we are relaxing after a huge dinner. Tomorrow we fly back to D.C.

Basilique St. Sernin
The first church was built on this site in the 5th century, then replaced with the larger church beginning in 1096. They were unable to afford stone, so the lower part of the church is stone and the upper part is brick.
After visiting Saint Sernin, we ate lunch at a cafe across the street, admired the cathedral while we enjoyed lunch and read up on Saint Saturnin, who the cathedral is named after.

Our hotel room in downtown Toulouse. The hotel was a block away from Place du Capitole. We were in the center of everything. Great walking! Interesting stores.

View from the hotel - a street in Toulouse, it was like a tiny less crowded Paris.

Point Neuf
There were these really amazing street performers playing jazz in the town center. They kept moving around so we got to hear them a couple of different places.
Everywhere has McDonalds! The Toulouse one looked so fancy, the bread looked so good and the meat looked like actual meat!
They have Subway too. Notice how no one is eating there....and the dude with the baguette.
Town Center pre-market.
Flea market in the town center, which had lots of junk and books and African stuff. For some reason the French are really into old WWE wrestlers like Batista and the Undertaker (THE BEST!) as well as Bob Marley. Not what USA should be known for, but it could be worse. I got Danny and Cheryl a really snazzy gift here! They were selling a lot of Algerian stuff for the soccer game today, too bad USA dominated them.
They have the doofy-est looking cars here! At least I think so. They all look like Matrix's or Prius's, very bubbly and girly. They have funny names too, like Picasso and Punto and Twingo or my personal favorite, Panda.
France has the most non-threatening police officers ever. This guy was smoking a cigarette! They have the funny sirens too like in the movies, not scary at all. Plus they're mostly young guys and in tiny Prius like cars. Not very intimidating.
My lunch, which we had outside the St. Sernin Basillica. It's duck if you cannot tell. I have found that duck is really just expensive dark meat, so you may as well get subpar chicken. Just my thoughts.
Fancy appetizer of scallops, which we got from the hotel Raddison we are at now, near the airport. It's a beautiful hotel, very fancy, and the first place we've been to that has a shower with doors! Everywhere else had no doors or shower curtains, it was very weird. I have learned that overall, the French are extremely fancy, sometimes too much for their own good. Apparently, it's all about the presentation, as you can see from the scallops and the classy McDonalds.

Dani at dinner. Today was all about food and relaxing.
Courtyard of Radisson Hotel. View from our dinner table. There is a mini-vineyard in the courtyard.

Carcassonne and Toulouse, our last stop

View from the outer wall of Carcassonne

We spent most of the day in Carcassonne, a huge medieval walled city that is completely preserved and filled with tourist shops. Dani was very patient with Leigh and we walked everywhere. We have now collapsed in our hotel in Toulouse after exploring for a few hours.

Entrance to Carcassonne.

Carcassonne was very well fortified. There is an outer wall of defense and then an inner wall. This is the space between the outer and inner walls. When they weren't defending Carcassone, this space was used for tournaments and jousting.Inside Carcassonne there is a small walled chateau which is also fortified. This is the courtyard of the chateau.

Welcome to Toulouse

Le Capitole of Toulouse. City Hall. This building is surrounded by lively cafes, hotels, and shops. Lots of music in the square. We found our first cheap clothing stores! There is a large university student population here.

More Salvador Dali

Salvador Dali resting peacefully in Figueres.

We have so many Salvador Dali photos that we have to share more with you. I am (Leigh) not a big Dali fan, but we have learned a lot about him and seen some very photogenic work. I think he was an example of the modern artist as performance artist. Self-serving and often not very deep. I am much more moved by Lascaux.

Salvador Dali's patio and swimming pool

Dali precious metal art work

Art studio

View of the roof of Dali's house in Cadesques

Dali and Gala's bedroom

Dali has a lot of very small chairs in his house.

Dali's living room.

We are filled with Salvador Dali information

The roof of the Teatre Museu Dali

Today we went to Figueres and Cadeques Spain! We had a lovely private tour from this woman named Anne who drove us around so Leigh could finally enjoy a car ride and lovely scenery. It's only a 45 minute drive from Collioure to Spain. We went to the Salvador Dali Museum in Figueres first. You can tell Salvador Dali designed it, very over the top and.....interesting. The first museum was of his paintings, sculptures, drawings, and other various objects he called art. It was awesome. The outside has these giant eggs on the top that you can see from a mile away.

There was also an exhibit showcasing his jewelery designs. The jewelry was beautiful. Very unexpected. Some of the jewelery was also mechanical. When we figure out how to do it, we will post a video of a jeweled beating heart.

After the museum, we met Anne and she drove us to Dali's house in Cadeques, which is also a museum. The tour was very private. They only let about 10 people into the house at a time. We were allowed 10 minutes in each section of the house. The house has a peaceful feel to it. Many unusual combinations of objects, but they all make sense in the way that they are put together. I must say, this is a house I could live in. It was ridiculous, from the giant polar bear to the phallic pool. He had his giant eggs here as well. You really get a sense of just how much a performer as well as artist he really was. The more absurd, the better.


On the way back, Anne took us to what she described as a "sumptuous" view of the port above Dali's house and the little beach town. It was amazing, definitely the most sumptuous and spectacular view I have ever seen. The ocean went on forever it seemed.
Here we shall leave you with a picture of our dinner last night. At The CopaCobana mind you. The biggest, fanciest, fishiest meal I have ever eaten. Of course the menu was in French, so I ordered what seemed to be the only things without cheese (non-formage is one of the two things I know how to say). And of course, every course but the appetizer came with melted cheese or ice cream all over it! Here's the appetizer, which lucky for me was a meal in and of itself.