I want a big French hat!

Today was our excursion to Albi, a nearby town. I realized I’ve never put a map on here, and I thought that would be fun, and Jason did it too, so look at this (Toulouse and other mentioned towns are in the "Midi-Pyrenees" region, waaaaay down south--note, enlarge the map to see it better). So we took the train, which was fun because I like trains, and the trains here are really nice and fast. We went into some sort of underground tunnel and for some reason, the pressure changed so much that all our ears went crazy. And then we resurfaced and everything was fine again. But it was weird! So then in Albi, before our first tour, we went to these gardens at the Palais de la Berbie, which has these great gardens overlooking the Tarn River. I took some pretty great shots, because the light was absolutely breathtaking at that time in the morning (around 9:45 am). Then we went on a tour of the Henri Toulouse-Lautrec museum, who is a painter very famous for a couple of his posters, and less famous for most of his other work. I’m positive you’ve seen this poster and this poster too.
And Toulouse-Lautrec was born in Albi, so they like him a lot there. The building the museum was housed in was kind of cool in its own right, because it’s actually partly in the Palais de la Berbie. And seeing those famous posters up close was fairly cool, except they didn’t have the cat one at this museum, I guess they had to share it with some other museum? So after that, we had a long break for lunch and we just walked around and I was in pain because my Pumas that I wear everyday decided to be like “oh hey, here are some blisters”. But I dealt!

And then we had another tour after lunch, of the St. Cecile Cathedral and the old part of Albi. But there was a wedding in the church, so we had to stall a little and look at some kind of boring things in old Albi before we got to go into the cathedral. But we did see the house where Toulouse-Lautrec was born, so that was neato.

Then we finally got to go in the Cathedral, and it was amazing. This cathedral is less like a church, and more like the most fortified fortress ever. It was built in the 14th century; I guess when all that crazy Crusade stuff was going on. So outside it’s fairly intimidating, and inside it’s beautiful. And the fact that there was a wedding just made it perfect, because during our whole tour there was beautiful singing and the organ and trumpets were playing. It was very dreamy, and then all the girls in our group swooned when we got a peek at the bride and groom. They were so young! And they had these adorable little kids in the wedding party, and these beautiful palm/white ribbon flower arrangments on each of the pews. And I was creepy and took a program that someone left in a pew. Sidenote: the French have a crazy custom at grand weddings, which is that all the women wear these crazy, fancy hats. Like, we’re talking hats…complete with feathers, spangles, dangly things and anything else that one would normally think should be avoided in all outfits. But somehow, it all works and makes everyone look really fashionable and amazing. Moral of the story: I’m going to have big crazy hats at my wedding and be really French.

Note: A french fashion statement thing that I'm not really into is the faux-hawk. I mean....what? When was that ever even popular in America, cause I think it was never, and therefore France should take a hint. I rode the bus home tonight with about 5 kids all sporting a faux-hawk, and I felt like saying "your hair looks stupid, and dirty because of all the gel you put in it to make it stand unnaturally on end." Hahaha, next time I'll snap a few photos. ;-)