A weekend in Toulouse



French autumn leaves

As I hadn't seen my cousin and his wonderful family in ages, I decided to visit them in Toulouse mid November. My Dutch cousin and his German wife and their three kids moved there last year from Hamburg. A recipe for linguistical confusion and for a relaxed weekend.

The fact that it was 18-20 degrees was just a bonus, 'cause even in rain and thunder I'd have had a blast. I totally fell in love with my little cousins, aged 3ish, 5ish and almost eight. They were so much fun, and it's so cool to see my cousin in them. The oldest turned out to be a great interpreter (and peace keeper for that matter) which was very useful as my German is rubbish and the wee one doesn't speak Dutch yet. Over the weekend I navigated between Dutch, broken German and even more broken French. 

So Toulouse....the biggest ancient city centre in Europe if I remember well. A massive cathedral. Loads of cool shops that I didn't visit. And quite some tea shops, so I had to sample a caffé gourmet in one of them. It's a good thing I don't often have time to eat properly during the week as the goodies that were the 'gourmet' probably counted for a full day's calories. Delicious.  

On Saturday we made a day trip to Auch, in the mid Pyrenees. A cute cobble stoned town, where the little one did a Marilyn Monroe on a wind machine for about ten minutes, much to the entertainment of other tourists.  And of course my trips abroad aren't complete without a visit to the local supermarket and markets. The Tournefeuille Carrefour and Sunday market saw to that.

And that was it in terms of 2011 weekend trips. The next trip is a biggie: to Melbourne in four weeks!



My two little helpers





Best place ever for a tea break



Food, fooder, foodiest

As my job can be pretty hard core, I tend to spend my weekday nights in the gym or on the couch with a book. This week though, I went out for dinner three times (and tomorrow will be number four).  On Monday my friend Deb was over from London with her boyfriend. We went to my local Szechuan restaurant and stuffed ourselves with some wonderful dishes. Tuesday the client and our team celibrated the succesful delivery of a project. Luckily I got to pick the restaurant and a place not too far from me happened to be convenient for everyone. Nice Frenchish food and a little bit too much wine. On a Tuesday, not a great idea... Yesterday I had my farewell dinner from my old team. Again, on walking distance from my place. It was nothing formal, I just asked the people I'd been closest too to join me for a farewell dinner. Magazzino serves great Italian food, overlooking the river. And I had more wine. I must be getting old but I can't really do drinking on two school nights in a row anymore. Tomorrow wil be dinner with three of my deariest friends in the Dam, Irish, English and French, at a restaurant that's meant to be really really good. It's called Anna, and it's in the red light district, which is an interesting choice of location for a resto like that. It will be a great way to start my weekend (and my diet!).