as usual the Gite woke around six so I got up too...but then the morning quickly unfolded and me and Ms.Ulm were the last ones out of the Gite...the host was very chatty and social with her since she spoke french which slowed our progress out the door... we never really discussed it but Ms.Ulm and I ended up walking all day together... the walk was again along the channel, so the scenery has not changed much in three days...the channel route was not again the official route that was listed in the pilgrims book but it was suppose to be a lot shorter and the other trail apparently was over grown with hard to find markers at times. Our chosen trail, was in shade most of the time so that is good...lots of exercise bikes on this route and not always very gracious about sharing the space with walkers..we talked about things like the hospice work she's done and some of the cool healers she's worked with. She too had read the book by Sogyal Rimpoche 'Tibetan book of living and dying' she had found it also very helpful for her work..today was a day where I found it harder to walk.. I needed frequent breaks because I just ran out of steam... around midday to both our surprise there was actually an open cafe-restaurant right on the trail...we stopped there for coffee and ice cream, the woman there seemed very concerned about having to deal with people who did not speak french... as if I could not order a coffee...she was quite relieved that my friend did know the language... we enjoyed the coolness and solitude of the indoor seating... all the other guests were outside... I find I get too much sun, so I actually look forward to sitting the cooler indoors...also smoking is allowed at the tables so the air is usually better quality indoors..the 25kms today felt very very long...the channel area got a little more urban as we progressed along it...the trail we followed seemed to suddenly get narrower and narrower until we had to cross over a barrier onto a busy road to continue... finally we found a safe place to cross..we walked along the channel some more, my friend tried to ask people about how far city center still was to Toulouse and where to catch bus 22 since that is what our instructions told us to do... ironically the first few people she approached where also not from here...eventually we muddled our way to the right bus stand...and onto the right buses...the bus driver for our destination seemed to know our stop...it was a catholic christian center with rooms.. we arrived tired around five... the man from the gite the night before had called to reserve for us, but we had been warned to call again around two...we did not, we had no phone and also felt double confirmations a little excessive..instead we had at two pm, the time to call taken a moment to ESP them with our mental powers, to let them know we were coming.... apparently this did not work... there were two ancient ladies in the office... who nervously shoveled around but did not even seem to have a record of last nights call... they also had no power to make decisions so we had to wait for a man who would arrive at six..there was a study near the office...so we made ourselves comfortable... taking our shoes off and I sorted through my food back to see what I had..eventually the right man did show up...he walked in on us and glared at us, as he saw us lounging on the floor perhaps a little too relaxed for such a place... he let us know repeatedly that we should have reserved, we said we had..just not twice... he was not exactly telling us to go...and it was also unclear whether we would help us..so we hovered around the office where he repeatedly seemed to shuffle angrily through papers...while the two old ladies looked on helplessly...finally he threw keys down by the counter... he told us to go to the store first for our dinner supplies since it was closing soon...and then he would give us keys to the room..so we found the local supermarket and got our evening supplies..stuff we could eat without cooking..they had salads ready made... I should mention we had not seen anything yet of the center of toulouse...we had skimmed the outskirts.. and had no sense of the city...when we came back a new man was behind the counter the old ladies had gone home... our main man came back and explained to the new man that we were the ones who had 'not reserved'...again... we then got a painstakingly slow tour of our rooms...to our surprise, despite all the fuss we each got our own rooms...then we had to be told how to use the door keys...finally we were allowed to think for ourselves again...we took our food bags outside and had picnic on the lawn...this place looked more like a school with dorms than anything very sacred.. eventually we saw the swiss couple come in...they had already arrived to town earlier and had first gone sight seeing before coming here... they too went and got picnic food and joined us... apparently they had reserved, in fact she had been asked to call back two more times because the right person was not there, and the two old ladies were not allowed to make decisions...but even this got botched and they had only reserved a space for one... we did not feel so bad for not reconfirming after that story...we caught up on our different journeys over the last few days..instead of taking the channel route that we had taken they had taken the overgrown route.. the man had a blurry photo he insisted was a kangaroo... i kept giving him a hard time...but finally i had to admit it kind of did look like a french kangaroo...they had had some difficulties finding the trail markings though as we had been warned... eventually an older dutch man and a quebec canadian man would join us.. the dutch man could speak german so mostly the conversation was in geman...when the quebec man started speaking his french neither the swiss or my german friend could understand him very well. In fact my friend from ulm asked me later, what language that was and why he could not speak english... I had always thought that french and quebec people spoke a similar enough language that they could understand each other..but apparently if you have had french as a second language it's a bit harder to understand quebec french...after we went to our separate rooms... the usual pilgrims chores..shower laundry...bed.. it was a bit hot and not the best night's sleep..
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