Sinon, tant pis!
Basically, one of our traveling companions with whom we had booked the hotel in Toulouse, dropped out at the last minute (the last minute being at the train station in Paris). I had booked the hotel through hostelworld.com, which I will probably no longer use. In short, I tried to cancel through the website. They said I had to contact the hotel. I tried to contact the hotel; they didn't answer. So we arrived at the hotel on Friday Feb 19th (Elvynia's birthday) where we were told that if we didn't cancel through hostelworld, we would have to pay for the entirety of the four nights. There was no way to contact hostelworld. Finally the lady let us cancel nights 2-4, but we lost the booking fee. We were tired, so we walked to a nearby boulangerie, bought sandwiches, and had a quiet night in, watching BBC.
The next day we planned to couchsurf.
Saturday we wandered around Toulouse, had a fabulous lunch at an Indian restaurant, and saw this:
Then we met our couchsurfer who, honestly, didn't seem to know what was going on and told us that we could sleep in one of his roommates beds that night, but there were people coming the next day. And he didn't know where exactly we would sleep. We talked for an awkward while and then played Mario Kart then he and one of his roommates made "dinner," which was just a huge thing of pasta with shredded cheese we could put on it if we wanted. They did have a tasty looking baguette on the table, but they didn't eat any, nor did they offer it to us. So we made do with the pasta. After that we met Elvynia's friend Remy for a belated birthday drink (or three). Then we went back to the couch surfer's and slept sideways on the roommate's bed. I did not trust the sheets and slept on my coat.
The next day when we finally got up we got lunch at a very cute little tea house/crêperie: I had a very good green salad with green olives and pesto dressing and a nice little crêpe buerre et sucre.
Then a miracle occurred. Elvynia's friend Yva who she met when she studied in Toulouse met us and chatted for a while. We, without going into too much detail, explained our couchsurfing plight. Then she said "Oh! You can stay in my boyfriend's apartment. He's never there (they were about to get a new apartment together); he stays at my place. It's clean and there's a washing machine. How lucky we were!
It was a really nice, little apartment. It was clean and comfortable. Thank you Yva!
That night Elvynia went to eat with Remy's family. Meanwhile Sheena and I had comfortable night in with some strange but tasty pasta that I made. (It was Sunday, and the only thing open was a night Épicerie with overpriced pasta and tomato sauce. I included a kind of chopped ham called lardon fumé and canned mushrooms in the sauce. Yes, it was weird, but it was good.)
Monday we planned to go to Carcassonne. Per usual, it took us a while to get ready, and by the time we got to the train station, we found out we would have to wait a while for the next train. We went and sat in a café. It was nice. There was also a crazy man/drunk sitting at the table behind us who made quacking noises. Carcassonne was cool. Before going I wasn't sure if I had been there before (during my high school trip to France and Spain) or not. Well, I have definitely been there before. It was nice the second time around, except the sky was gray and overcast, and we were tired. We wandered around.
Elvynia took this picture of me:
We walked back to the new city and found a café where we sat and had hot chocolate.
Back in Toulouse we met Remy and a couple of his friends for dinner at this Chinese restaurant. The food was very disappointing, but the guy who owned the place was almost entertaining enough to make up for it. We went to the main student bar that was so packed that we couldn't even buy drinks. Sheena and I decided to rentrer chez nous. (go home), and Elvynia and Remy came back a little while later. Sheena had an early train back to Angers, and we had a later one to La Rochelle.
We had planned to stay two days in La Rochelle, but we were so tired. We ended up just staying one night with couchsurfers Justine and Justine who were roommates and friends and both studied Chinese. They were super nice and welcoming, and it would have been a great place to see. I think we'll go back. It's a very pretty little city, smaller than Angers and a port. Here are some pictures:
We also had some tasty galettes (savory crêpes). Then we came home.
And that was what happened in Toulouse.
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