The Ride to Cassonne

The goal: go to bed early and wake up early to visit the town of Cassonne as there is a Medieval Fortress there. The reality: we ate dinner at 9, took at walk at 10:30 and I tried to sleep at 11. The cake that Fanny's grandparents brought had little chocolate curls on the top, they were so small that I could not pick them out. I did not think much about it until I was laying in bed at 11:00 wide awake.

I am not sure when I actually fell asleep, but I do know that it was way too late and I was getting up way too early. I woke up and took a shuttle and then a train into Toulouse with Fanny. Today was her first day back to work and it was my second day off.

The train station was a bit busier than I expected, but I survived. I made my way to the teller and she sent me to an English speaker. I bought my train ticket to Cassonne and had about an hour to kill. I knew this area well, as it was across the street from Hooker Lane. I found my favorite bakery and bought a chicken salad sandwich and pastry. I ate the sandwich right away (so much for saving it for lunch) and made my way back to the train station.

There was a creepy guy walking around and I saw a girl walk to another spot to get rid of him. Just my luck, he walked up to me next. I waved my hand so he would go away, but he did not, so I did. I found a nice little sunny spot next to the canal that smells like pee and a man (I think it was a man) still sleeping in his sleeping bag. With about 20 minutes left, I headed back to the train station.

I went into the store to get lip balm, but they had none. I realized that although I packed my camera, I forgot to pack the battery (I was so excited about the pictures I would take that I wanted a full battery and charged it last night...and left it in the plug this morning). I took a moment to search the store for a camera, they had film, but no disposable camera.

I caught the train and had a beautiful view of the countryside. The hills, mountains in the distance, the green, the fields, and the sunflowers. It was field after field of sunflowers. Most of them were fading away and some of the fields were completely dead, but every now and again we would pass bright yellow fields that were beautiful. I wish that I had come a couple of weeks ago and seen them in full bloom.