November 25th, 2011 Albi, France

 Today Alexia asked me if I wanted to go to Albi, She explained it to me as “very old city”  so I gave it a quick google and it took be a millisecond to make my decision once I had se the page of images that came up on the search. She said she would like to stay the night there and that she had many friends there as well as her brother whom she dearly loved and wanted to introduce me too so about 1 hour later we had our overnight bags packed and were in the jeep and off to Albi.
   We arrived there 30 minutes later in Albi, the scenery on the way was beautiful as always the small winding 1 1/2 lane roads that wound through the French countryside and small towns always kept my eyes and spirit on a natural “high”.... I have yet to be disappointed once with anything in France.
   Upon arriving to the city limits of Albi she got her iPhone out and was looking for the hotel, we drove around for 20 minutes asked for directions  twice and still could not find the hotel. The shops, cafe’s and flats are all connected to make one long winding brick snake along the city streets and it is sometimes hard to find the place you are looking for, she was trying to drive and look at her phone for the GPS so I could watch out the window but after not finding it she had gotten frustrated enough to let me take the phone and try to guide her, she showed me on the phone what dot the hotel was and what dot we were and asked me what what way to go....so we finally got to the green dot on the google map and no hotel in sight and to top it all off, we were 100 feet or so from where we started...., so she put her phone away and we drove around looking and looking but nothing. so again after asking directions and going on a wild goose chase again for a hotel that we were both starting to wonder even existed she got her phone out again and looked at the map she was trying to point and explain to me and then it hit me, she told me to go the the green dot but meant to say the red dot and we were the blue dot, the green dot was where she first started the map app and the red dot was destination...which now explains why we ended up right where we started.... we definitely got a good laugh out of that one as we had realized what we had done!!
  Got to the hotel and checked into our room, beautiful little hotel less than 5 minutes walking time from the Cathedral and shopping district. We left our things at the hotel and took the camera and headed to see some sights of Albi. We walked this time and went through the shopping district, turn out our 5 minutes from the hotel resulted in a 45 minute walk since the building are so close together and very high we could not see the Cathedral and took a wrong turn, but it was a fun walk for me anyway:) She stopped at a bakery and got a few macarons they are a small French specialty cookie with a small drop of flavoring inside, very delicious. We got to the Cathedral and I was stunned at how big this building actually was, I can not even think of the words to put it perspective...its one of those “you have to see it to believe it” kinds of things, I took pictures inside and out. Check out the pics on my Facebook page, the craftsman ship in this building must have taken many workers hundreds of thousands of hours, the Cathedral is over 1000 years old and in great condition.
  We went to the center square of town for a drink while we waited for her friend Nicolai and her brother David, we each had a bier, it was getting a bit chilly out, our biers were gone and she wanted me to taste the “hot wine” it was actually very good, a red wine with 2 lemon slices in it , it reminded me of a cross of tea and cider. Just as we finished the hot wine, Nicolai showed up and us 3 went back to his “flat” which was a 5 minute walk from where we had our drink. We visited with Nikolai who spoke great English and was a photographer with a creative mind like none I have seen before, he showed me his work and we all chatted and laughed, he was a good translator for the questions and comments that Alexia and I had for each other that we had not figured out, a short time later her brother David arrived at Niko’s flat and we went to get a bit too eat at a small italian cafe, where we met some more of Niko’s friends. we all headed to a small pub where Niko said the was a band from Australia and they were very similar to a Johnny Cash style of sound. we stayed there where I met Niko’s brother and we all had many “Pico” biers, at 3 a.m. Niko walked us back to the hotel where we all said goodnight....and a good night it was,