This morning we got up a little bit earlier than \u201cnormal\u201d, and had a light breakfast in the hotel.\u00a0 They had some interesting yogurt flavors that you don\u2019t find in Japan (coconut, for example), so it wasn\u2019t totally boring.\u00a0 We had some time before our flight to Toulouse, so we decided to do a recon of the local train station.\u00a0 It was actually quite close by, and we semi-figured out the system first before we checked out of our hotel.\u00a0 After checking out of the hotel we came back, bought tickets at the correct machine, and then caught a train to the airport.\u00a0 The train was a little bit closer to light rail than an actual train, but it was a very modern system. I\u2019d guess the trains and station were less than five years old.<\/p>\n
As we left the middle of Porto we could get a chance to see some of the outskirts.\u00a0 We saw a lot of smaller houses, some in good neighborhoods and some in bad.\u00a0 There was a lot of open space out here also, which was nice to see after the narrow old city.\u00a0 It took about half an hour to get to the airport, and we arrived with plenty of time to spare before our flight.\u00a0 We hit a caf\u00c3\u00a9 and bought some juice to kill time, and then dropped our luggage at the EasyJet counter.\u00a0 According to the board there was only one flight by EasyJet from Porto that day, so it was easy to find the right counter.<\/p>\n
Going through security I managed to set off the security alarm, so I had to be searched.\u00a0 I\u2019ve gone through the metal detectors enough times that I know what will make it go off and what won\u2019t, but this time maybe they had it set to a very sensitive level.\u00a0 They never found what was causing it, but after the frisk I was OK to go on.<\/p>\n
We found a little shop that sold tiny sandwiches along with glasses of sparkling wine, and that seemed right up our alley.\u00a0 We enjoyed our brunch and then did some shopping in the duty free shops for some omiyage – some for other people and some for us.\u00a0 They had some good shops at the Porto airport, actually.\u00a0 We had plenty of time to shop because our flight was also delayed about 30 minutes.\u00a0 But once we got boarded it was a very easy 90 minute flight to Toulouse.\u00a0 Kuniko\u2019s suitcase was literally the last bag out on the baggage carousel, so we had some time to wait there, too.<\/p>\n
We caught a taxi from the airport, and it took us to the center of Toulouse.\u00a0 We had picked this city for meeting my parents based on geography only – I wasn\u2019t very familiar with the city at all.\u00a0 As it turned out it was quite nice, and it reminded me a little bit of parts of Paris.\u00a0 The taxi driver knew the hotel so it was a direct shot there, and as we were unloading our bags we met up with my parents who were in the lobby of the hotel.<\/p>\n
Wow – it was really surreal to see my parents here in Europe.\u00a0 They had spent nearly two weeks with friends and their former interns in the southern part of France.\u00a0 We caught up with them over a bottle of rose in their hotel room, and it sounds like they had a great time during their stay.\u00a0 They told us all about the wedding they attended, about driving in a rental car to Toulouse and the adventures they had doing laundry and mailing packages in France.\u00a0 It was really good to see them out here trying new things.<\/p>\n
We decided to walk around a little in the downtown area of Toulouse and do some exploring.\u00a0 There was a big shopping street nearby, so we walked down the street and breathed in the vibe of the neighborhood.\u00a0 I bought a muddler at a cooking tools shop (and I brought home a catalog – what a cool shop!), and we saw some street performers speaking and breakdancing and gathering big crowds.\u00a0 We kind of stumbled on a big square that was in front of the opera house.\u00a0 There were restaurants along two of the sides of the square, so we stopped at one for a glass of wine and to give everyone a chance to rest.<\/p>\n
On our way back to the hotel we followed my parents who remembered that there was a Carrefour supermarket nearby.\u00a0 Eventually we found another supermarket that was closer, but it was a little strange inside.\u00a0 It was kind of like a wholesaler\/seconds supermarket, and they sold their products out of boxes.\u00a0 Even here we found lots of interesting stuff.\u00a0 Kuniko scored some cans of foie gras pate, but we also got some supplies for our train trip the next day to Cognac.<\/p>\n
Well-supplied, we went back to the hotel to drop stuff off, and then went back to the opera house square to have some dinner.\u00a0 We chose a restaurant based on the fact that they were displaying an English menu in out front, and it turned out to be a good choice.\u00a0 The staff was very friendly despite the fact that we only spoke English, and the food and wine was great.\u00a0 My mom and I had cassoulet, and Kuniko and my dad had foie gras.\u00a0 They served us bread right on the table, which I saw for the first time.\u00a0 So far in our travels in France we got our bread on plates, so there was a little mini-culture shock moment for me.<\/p>\n
My dad was quickest to snatch the bill, and Kuniko was really bummed out.\u00a0 She had been spending most of the afternoon planning how to get the bill first, but unfortunately we lost out to age and experience.\u00a0 Next time we\u2019ll get it! We took a short walk back to our hotel, had a nightcap of port that we brought over from Porto, and then went to bed.\u00a0 It was hard to set the alarm for 4:15 am, but we had an early train to catch the next day and we needed to drag our luggage a few blocks to make it to the train station on time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This morning we got up a little bit earlier than \u201cnormal\u201d, and had a light breakfast in the hotel.\u00a0 They had some interesting yogurt flavors that you don\u2019t find in Japan (coconut, for example), so it wasn\u2019t totally boring.\u00a0 We had some time before our flight to Toulouse, so we decided to do a recon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pOpl7-KA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2888\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}