Toulouse - Day 1

Friday morning, I packed up my bags to head off to Toulouse for a week with my friend/co-researcher Marie-Claire: we are spending a week here, to do some presentations and seminars at the University of Toulouse, and to spend some time working on our dissent project.

the sky from our apartment

We are staying in a great apartment on the top floor of one of the university buildings.  The building is called "La Manufacture du Tabac" (it was an old Tabaco Factory, which was repurposed to house the University of Toulouse).  You can read about the history of the building here.

I hadn't been to Toulouse before, and didn't have too much of an idea re what to expect,  so the city has been  a (very pleasant) surprise.

Pink roof tiles!

Marie-Claire told me that the city is often called "the pink city".  Well... at first i thought that was because of the colour of the sky as dusk was falling.  And falling it was, as I arrived at the apartment. Here are some shots of the view from our window.  You can see that 'pink' is a dominant colour.  However, Marie-Claire reminded me that people have pink sunsets around the world, and told me to look at the buildings themselves, and even the tiles on the room of the building across from us.  Yep.... multiple shades of pale pink!

night time in La Capitale

The sun was down within a half-hour, so we headed off to explore.  In "La Capital" (a gorgeous square a 10 minute walk away), we hung out at the Christmas Fair, wandering past stalls with crafts, food, jewelry, drinks, buskers, etc.  Finally we headed off down a side street to find a place to eat, later returning to the square.  Though the stalls were by then closed for the evening, the lights covering the buildings were still illuminated.  The weather is still fairly mild, and the streets were still full of people milling around.  A great vibe for a first night!