Upon arrival, we realized that a)we had no idea how to get to the hotel Sara had booked for us, b)we were hungry, and c)we had to go to the bathroom. In an eventually unsuccessful attempt to kill three birds with one stone, we tried to find our hotel, eat somewhere near it, and use the bathrooms at the restaurant of our choice (we were avoiding using the public restrooms at the train station since you probably had to pay for them; more on that in another post).
Anyways, after dragging our stuff around a foreign city for about half an hour (which I commend the makers of Mandy's rolling suitcase, as it was dragged across all terrains throughout the entire visit without giving out on her), we realized that we still had no idea where our hotel was, we were still hungry, and we had to go to the bathroom even more badly. We gave up on the search for the hotel and found a restaurant (and a bathroom to match). After our meal, we asked our waitress if she knew how to get to our hotel. She asked whether we were going by car or bicycle. After informing her that we were traveling au pied (by foot), she laughed at us and told us that we would need to take the bus to the stop Sylvaza (strange, since the internet had told us that the hotel was only 2 km from the train station). Little did we know what would ensue from this.We began by finding a bus stop. At this stop, we waited for a bus. Upon its arrival, we asked the driver if his bus would take us to our desired stop. Of course not. That would have been too easy, and the adventure would have ended there. Instead he directed us down the hill to a different bus stop, but didn't give us any more helpful information (or if he did, it was in French and I missed it entirely). On the way to the next stop (still on foot, and still dragging our stuff), we saw signs for the Office of Tourism. We followed those signs to the office where, in English, a man explained which stop we were to get on at, which route we were to take (route 1 by the way, please keep that in mind), and which stop we were to get off at. These instructions came with a marked map of Carcassonne. We found the stop, and a bus marked 1 drives up. And we're golden, right? Wrong.
Unbeknownst to us, this driver changed his route number after we climbed onto the bus. (Side note: I had to look up how to spell the word unbeknownst, because math at GT has done nothing for my spelling skills.) We were now on route 2, and wondering why this bus was not following the route that our map said route 1 should be taking. Eventually Sara asked the driver if the bus was going to Sylvaza. He said no, that we were on the wrong bus, that he was driving bus 2 and we wanted bus 1. Awesome. Eventually the bus returned to the stop that we got on at, and we proceeded to get off the bus. We now wait for another bus marked 1. When this bus arrives, we get on the bus and immediately ask the driver if his bus is the correct one to take us to our stop. He said blah blah blah in French, of which I understood that no, he was not going there, but that we need to stay on his bus right now, and do something else later (though I didn't know what that something else was). So we sat down on the bus and promptly made friends with an old lady who told us that she was going to the same place and that we could follow her. She talked to us for the rest of the ride, informing us that we had bad French accents (yeah, some friend she turned out to be). Anyways, eventually the bus driver kicks everyone off his bus (which cleared the blah blah up; I guess his shift was over and he couldn't finish the route). We were told to get on whichever bus showed up next.
So bus 3 pulls up. Our old lady friend gets on the bus and tells the bus driver that we're American and basically don't know anything. We got on the bus (our third one now, mind you) only to find that the driver of this bus is the same driver from our first bus. So apparently this driver had been driving route 1, switched to route 2 while we were on his bus, made us get onto a different bus (knowing our desired destination the entire time), and was now driving bus 3, which took us to our hotel. If he had been kind enough to tell us that he would eventually be driving route 3 to Sylvaza, we could have arrived at the same time that we did.
Now it is about 4:30 in the afternoon, and we noticed on the bus schedule that the last bus runs at about 7:30. Not a problem right? I mean, surely we can eat somewhere around our hotel, and walk back afterwards. That would have been a fantastic idea if the hotel had actually been 2 km from the train station and therefore close the main part of the city. This had to be a few miles from any kind of helpful civilization. So we check in to our hotel and promptly take the bus back into the city (making sure to get to get the number for a taxi, since the bus stops running before most people in this country even eat dinner). We ate at a pizza place (I had an egg in the middle of my pizza, tres weird, I know). Afterwards we asked our waitress to call the taxi for us so that we didn't cause confusion with our bad French and not knowing where we were-ness. Upon returning to the hotel, we watched American movies with French dubbed over the voices and went to bed.
The next day we got up early so that we could go spend the day at the castle, and catch our evening train back to Toulouse. We took the bus into town, again, and headed for the train station. We were told that there were lockers that we could rent at the train station so we didn't have to lug our stuff around all day. Not so. The lockers weren't open for some security reasons blah blah (more French). So we dragged our crap up to the castle (which conveniently enough for us is built on a hill). Surely there would be a place we could check our stuff while we toured the castle.
Again, not so. The lady at the ticket office told us that the Office of Tourism (a different one than before; this one was within the fortress walls) might have a place. So we went there. They also didn't have a place for us, but try the hostel up the street, maybe they have a place. Nope. Not unless you're staying at the hostel. So in the end, we had to drag all of our crap throughout the castle and the village that's inside the fortress walls. But it was really cool.
There were a bunch of cool little shops and boutiques, so I bought a couple of gifts for people. We ate lunch at La Table Ronde (The Round Table), corny I know, but it was a really cool restaurant. Eventually we headed back down the hill toward the train station and went back to Toulouse.Saturday night and Sunday in Toulouse were pretty relaxed. I ran both days and tried to get some sleep. Sunday, I went to mass at St. Sernin, the huge old church that we took a field trip to. I didn't know most of the stuff obviously. So now I really want to learn the Our Father, the Creed (thankfully they say the short one, don't know why though), the sign of the Cross, and peace be with you all in French. It was weird though, because at the end of mass they started letting people back in to tour the church, so there were people standing around watching us hold mass. Anyways, afterward I wandered around the market that encircled the church, and eventually made my way to the park where I read for about 4 hours in the beautiful weather. Overall an enjoyable weekend. But, following suit with many other scenarios I have encountered, nothing is ever easy.
