The Adventures of
David
Elizabeth
and Leif

Outside St Sernin Basilica there was a flea market. You can buy guitar amps, old Mac computers, gas cans, urns, 220V coffee pots …

… cell phone chargers and Atari joysticks …

… and African Idols and masks.

All outside this c. 1100 cathedral.

Inside the cathedral …

The altar

Something about this makes me think of Minas Tirith.

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The passage to the crypt.

On the way down, the last bit of sunlight lit this Madonna.

Inside the vault, many treasures.

Looking up through the grate toward the main altar.

Some saint that was wounded in the leg. I couldn’t find out anything about him.

The organ over the main entrance.

Back outside … the steeple tower.

The bustling streets of Toulouse.

Place du Capitol has a farmers market every morning.

Ellie saw McDonalds sundaes and couldn’t resist … even in France!

I, on the other hand enjoyed a Panini Curry Poulet and a Bavaria beer (incidentally sold like Coca Cola is sold in the US). We took our treasures out to the River Garrone.

Ellie soon got sick of having her picture taken.

I did not.

Back at Place du Capitol, the farmer’s market had cleared out and this guy was juggling.

Yes, juggling while riding a unicycle.

He could get on his unicycle without using his hands…

And pick up his stuff off the ground without a dismount.

This kid seemed to be inspired…

We woke up on our second full day in Toulouse to … rain.

That made it a perfect day for a museum. We went to The Augustins fine art museum. It’s in an old monestary built in the 14th-15th centuries. The first place we saw was the courtyard.

It has a bunch of gargoyles in it. They were singing. Elizabeth decided to join in.

Just before we left for France, Elizabeth had been in a performance in Atlanta. Besides her piece Flypaper Dances, she danced in Gargoyles. Here, she’s performing with actual gargoyles…

I tried to sing, but the gargoyles started to get up and leave.

It was still raining.

We went into the main statue hall and were met by this imposing figure … I wasn’t sure if he was going to smash his cross over our skulls.

After that we went to the hall of capitals — full of about 40 capitals from buildings around the city.

Later we went into the cathedral.

Overall, it was a satisfying experience … and it almost stopped raining in time for our walk back to the hotel.

While the Blizzard of ‘06 was raining down tremendous amounts of snowfall on NYC, I was in MSY (that’s New Orleans for you non-aeronautical people). On the way in, I caught some images for you.

This image was taken looking down the 17th street canal. We were over Lake Ponchartrain flying southwest towards MSY airport.

A tight crop of the end of the canal towards the lake is seen below. This is one of the major levee breaks in New Orleans due to Katrina.

We stayed in downtown … I have no idea what quarter … but it was about an 8 block walk down to where the pre-mardi gras partying was happening on Bourbon St. Walking down there was wierd.

There was no direct evidence of flooding. Walking the street you’d see one restaurant or shop totally normal and the next one would be trashed. There was a lot of renovation going on. Our hotel lobby smelled a little funky but my room 7 floors up smelled like a normal hotel room.

February 17th was our 9th anniversary. We celebrated by taking a semi-surprise trip to Montreal, Quebec. Montreal is about 85% French-speaking (actually, their dialect is called quebecois but it’s all french to me). We had a fun time trying to communicate. I got good enough at saying excuse me in french that Elizabeth finally stopped laughing at my poor pronunciation of that infernally challenging but beautiful language.

We arrived on Wed the 16th to a snowy, 30 deg F environment. I pricelined a 4-star hotel in downtown for $65/night and got the Hilton. Our room was looking out onto the rooftop pool/garden and some buildings downtown.

On our anniversary, it was a beautiful, sunny day. We started off the day by getting on the Metro and going to a breakfast in Old Montreal. Yum

Next we went to Basilique Notre Dame, a very beautiful and old (for North America) church. Like most old cathedrals, this one is also a national symbol.

Inside, it was completely beautiful.

In the front of this church is an amazing altar.

On the 15 minute tour, our guide described the scenes visible on the altar. At the top left is
Melchizedek, who brought out bread and wine when Abraham offered him the spoils of a battle.

At the top right is Aaron, the first high priest, offering a lamb.

As the tour guide described all these biblical scenes and the ones on the bottom row, with the cross in the middle, the beauty and conneciton to the gospel themes in the scriptures was incredible.

Until she described the principle scene in the altar.

Over every amazing biblical story, the image of Jesus crowning Mary queen of the world was elevated. I felt like the wind was taken from my spiritual sails … as my heart was swelling with worship of the work of the Lord throughout the scriptures, the highest thing in this wonderful building was a story made up my humans, not found or alluded to in scripture. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, since the name of the church is Notre Dame — "Our Lady" in french.

After visiting the church, we headed down to the waterfront, the St. Lawrence River. On the way we admired the architecture.

We saw some ice skaters.

I got some beautiful pictures of Ellie inside the warming house for the skating rink.

Next we walked up to the nearest Metro, past the "sailors’ Notre Dame" … an old church with a giant statue of Mary welcoming the sailors coming up the St. Lawrence home.

The Subways in Montreal have rubber tires! I thought that was cool.

We took the trains and walked a bunch till we found a nice bagel place in the Jewish quarter of Montreal. Then we headed back to our hotel, got dressed and went to see the Mad Shak dance company perform on the opening night of the Montreal Lights Festival. It was a good trip.