From Montpellier to Toulouse

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Hello Reader.

After catching a long train to Toulouse, I found an internet cafe and called Benny, my host for the next couple of days. Benny is an Irish fellow who is a couchsurfing ambassador (he is really passionate about traveling and learning). He has lived everywhere and now speaks, with great skill and fluency, Spanish, German, Italian, French, and now Portugese. This impressive and inspirational polyglot is only twenty-three years old. I was worried that, because he has already been the host of countless other travelers, I would be unable to tell Benny anything that he has yet to hear. But he was open and interested to everything. I had definitely made the right choice in coming to visit him in Toulouse.

I met Benny at a tourism office in a garden in the middle of Toulouse. He had with him Ang, his guest right before me and also a CS ambassador from New Zealand, but currently living in Bordeaux, France - wine country. We walked back to Benny's apartment and sat down to talk and get to know eachoter. We got on really well and I really felt sad when Ang had to catch a train after only a couple of hours. She really seemed cool and I wish I had more time to converse... passing ships in the night.

Benny and I ate some pasta that he made and I did the dishes. We then went t my first ever couchsurfing meeting/get-together. There were a number of other surfers in Toulouse this weekend and all the hosts and travelers met at a bar. I met a number of really cool people that night. Yann, Perrine, Marii (a nice girl from Estonia with amazing blue eyes) and her friend, I also met a guy named Sylvain (who has traveled to thirty-six countries and met media and government officials in the name of spreading peace) and an American named Nicolas Casias from Colorado, who was staying with Perrine and leaving for Barcelona for a couple of days.

We all had a great time and shared so many stories, but if Ang ever asks, we'll say that it was a horrible time, (so she doesn't feel bad about missing it.) Benny and I walked Perrine and Nicolas to her flat and Benny and I went home, talked for about an hour and a half and then went to bed.

I woke up at eleven o'clock, showered and had a (much needed) shave. Benny came home from work around twelve for his break and we went to meet Nick and one of his friends from back home who was studying in Toulouse, Zarla. The four of us went for some great Kabap for lunch. Benny went back to work and Zarla showed Nick and me around town. We walked to the University of Toulouse, saw the oldest wall in Toulouse, and went to the top of a garage to see why they call Toulouse 'The Pink City' (it's the roof tile).

We then met Perrine for tea and Zarla headed off. Perrine, a freelance journalist is one of the sweetest girls. She is new to couchsurfing (two weeks) and has an open outlook about it. ('I think it will change my life.' To which I responded, 'it has already changed mine.') The three of us explored different streets and churches, they even helped out the city by posing as fountain statues for a short while when there was a lack of one.

We decided that we should cook dinner and invite Benny and Yann. I picked up a few things from the store: pasta, sauce, cheese, bread, and, of course, wine. They all arrived and the food came out. The dinner went off without a hitch. It turns out that Yann is a self-procolaimed geek who drives a Smart car and takes amazing pictures. He also has a great sense of humor. Benny informed that there is no abstinence in Spain and reminded Nick that the word is 'polyglot' not 'pot-belly.' We had tons of laughs and listened to great music while eating this great meal. Perrine made tea and we all just seemed to meld together despite our completely different backgrounds. It was a memorable night. Benny and I went home and played a game of chess, which I luckily won. I stayed up past five am doing some unsuccessful couchsurfing in Barcelona (my next destination) and writing an e-mail to a friend. I slept in til twelve.

Benny came home and helped me put some music on my Rio from his collection and we were off for one last lunch with Perrine and Nick. It was hard to say goodbye to Benny. He'll be moving to Brazil soon and speaking fluent Portugese in no time. I just try to focus on the fact that I had a great time while we were together, and not so much on the leaving part.

Nick is an extremely outgoing college grad from the Denver area. He has been traveling alone through Europe for three months and hopes to find a place in Spain to live, work, and develop his Spanish. He has a stick-it-to-the-man standpoint on a lot of issues and makes great random references to little remembered old movies like Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. He wears his heart on his sleeve and is a true seeker of personal enlightenment. There is a chance that I will end up living with him at some point. But first we had to catch a train.

Nick and I met at the square and headed to the train station. We went to the international ticket counter to set up a reservation for a train that would be leaving in twenty minutes. The lines were long (and of course we waited until the last minute). We waited and waited and were down to ten minutes until the train for Barcelona left and there were still four people ahead of us to buy tickets, each person averaging at least five minutes at the counter. 'It's not looking good,' I said as the minute hand moved one step closer to four eleven.

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