Bienvenue a Toulouse, France

 We are on the move and officially in the Pink City, la ville rose, Toulouse. Our trip started off, in true European fashion, with our flight being canceled due to a strike with airport security workers in Frankfurt. The good news: we were able to get rebooked from United to Lufthansa with a connection in Munich. The bad news: we couldn't use any of Jay's plus points on United for upgrades or the lounge. 

Jan. 31st - Drop off at DIA from Mama and Papa's Driving Service 

Ready to take off - crammed in the middle row - this is NO sky couch!



German Pretzels for breakfast at the Munich Airport  

6 hour layover in Munich = time to sleep, finally...

No matter that our "bed" was hard, plastic chairs with 6" gaps

We finally arrived in Toulouse at 6:00pm on Wednesday, February 1st. The customs process was nonexistent and they basically just looked at our boarding passes before we exited the airport. This was a STARK contrast to entering NZ, where we waited in a customs line for at least an hour, had all of our bags carefully examined, and even had our hiking boots taken out and washed off.

It was super easy to grab a taxi, that even fit all of our luggage, to get to our place. We are located at 8 Rue de Henri Bornier. It was easy to walk around the corner to a local supermarche (Petit Casino) and grab some food for dinner. The kids found carbonara pasta boxes that you heat up in the microwave and Jay and I fried up some pre-made croque monsieur.  

Our Location in the city and pics of our apartment - J'adore! 

                                            Bright kitchen and dining area - great cooking supplies! 

 Kids room - 2 twin beds that they have now totally rearranged :)

Loft area with extra "bed" and toys/books

Our room, tiny but cute. Lots of good storage in closets

                               The couch is big enough for all 4 of us to relax comfortably, TV is tiny

Sante! First bottle of Vin! 

First meal in our apartment 

 

Friday, February 2nd

The kids woke us up at 11:45am! Guess we were all tired. We spent the day exploring the city - we can EASILY walk to the city center - I love it! It's so fun to be in a city where everything is so accessible. In a lot of ways this feels easier than Christchurch, but more thoughts on that later. 

First stop, the boulongarie! 

Chocaltine emparte 

St. Aubin 

The canal - we spotted a beaver later that day. walking/running/biking path all along the canal = tres amusante 

Shopping the soldades - French sales - that end this week! 

One of the BEST parts of Toulouse - our NZ friends, Sofie, Wylie and Mara, are here! They have been living here for the past two months, and have become our personal tour guides. We've seen them almost every day. Mara is the cutest and the kids adore her. Maggie has already helped with some babysitting and has more days lined up to help fund her love for French shopping! They will be here until the end of February, so we are squeezing all the hang time we can get :) . 

Meeting up for the first time with Mara @ Place Saint-Georges on Friday night

Le place - so cute, restaurants and shops everywhere

Sofie ordering our pizza to go - we heavily relied on her French for the first few days here :)

Our pizza haul back at S,W, and M's place! Thank goodness for good pizza, something that NZ did NOT have.

We were still wide awake Friday night and didn't go to bed until 2:00am...The jet lag here has been much worse than NZ. 

Saturday, February 3rd 

Another morning sleeping in late, and then we met up with our friends for lunch and more city exploring. 

Greek restaurant for lunch, food looked better than it tasted, but did the job ;) 

carousel ride in Place Wilson 

oh la la....

First sightings of La Garonne - the main river in Toulouse 

Walking by some cute market

Welcome to the hustle and bustle of a city! 

Park by the river 

Looking forward to nice weather and lounging on the Garonne

It's cool and gray, but plenty of people are still out and about

Love the shutters on all the buildings - tres French!

 

one of many flower shops

Croissants for the rue after a long day of city walking 

Fresh baguette with French butter, Oui s'il vous plait!!

A fresh salad to round out the meal

Monday, February 4th 

Jay went to work at Supaero today! He commutes on the local bus. It's about a 20 minute ride plus some walking time to and from the bus. His first impressions are that he's enjoying getting to know people and learn more about the area. He has an office on campus and shares it with a postdoc named Alex. We're still a little unclear about what his actual schedule will look like. So far, he's been going up to work in the late morning (since we're still adjusting to the time change), going out to lunch with coworkers and then coming home around 5pm. 

Meanwhile the kids and I did school then had Mara over for maggie (and Finn) to help babysit. 

Watching Mara - Finn's a human safety net

Fun park close to our house - Jardin de l'Observatoire 

Finn says, "I can't wait to take Cormac Here!"

I've been getting lots of glimpses of what Finn would look like as a big brother - he surprises me all the time with how cute he can be with little kids. 

The park is full of these buildings...observatories?? 

Glass recycling located at the end of our block

Mara lovin' on Finn

Tuesday, February 6th 

Finn and I walked to the local boulangarie (5 min.) for breakfast. Can you guess which one is Finn's??

 

Maggie and I wanted to shop before the sales end on Friday...Here's how much fun Finn was having.

 

Luckily we found a Haribo store to help perk Finn up!

Cute bar on the walk home from the city center.