The city is getting ready for Christmas. The lights and decorations are going up everywhere. I am excited to see them when they are all turned on. Tonight, I saw that they have started to set up the Christmas market in the main square. It opens in a little over a week.

When I was walking back from lunch, I went through the Place de Capitole and a group of young men with a basketball hoop were goofing around. As I watched, I saw that they were filming a video of the activities. A group of the young men would lift the basketball hoop and run across the plaza to where another young man would be running with the hoop, they would plant the hoop and then the young man would shoot the basket. If he missed, they would start the whole process over again. If he made the basket, they would shoot off confetti and scream and grab him and jump up and down. I stopped to watch and they repeated it over and over again. I saw him make the basket three times. I am guessing that the video shots were not good enough for the first two times and they were repeating it to get better reactions. I am guessing it will be all edited into a video that they hope will go viral.

It was fairly amusing as some of the people in the place just kept walking and did not really notices all this going on. The rest were watching with amusement as to the antics of the group.

During one of the breaks in filming, most of the young men were using the basketball as a soccer ball and were actually much better at soccer than basketball.

I did my new routine of having lunch at a restaurant (big meal) on days when I join the running group. I had a really nice and inexpensive lunch at Restaurant au Gascon. It is off the main streets and I found it by accident. The 3 course meal of day was 13.50 Euros and a glass of wine was 5.50 euros. It was a really good deal and the food was good. I got my first meal with actual vegetables – green beans but they were overcooked but still vegetables. They also added a little salad with the meal.

I felt like the restaurant must be a really good deal because there were a lot of older diners. I sort of felt that I was back at the retirement community where my parents lived. I am not complaining as the food was good and very reasonable. I will go back again to try other options.

I ran with the group and as usual the route was slightly different than previous routes. There is generally a core part of the run which is in the center part of the city and then we head out along the banks of the Garonne. The route we run along the river seems to change depending on which “capitaine” who is leading the run. It is nice to see different aspects of the city. Last night was slightly chilly but the moon was beautiful as the night was completely clear and so the moon, the lights of the city and the lights on the bridges made for a very scenic run. I did not take a picture as I was too busy running.