I did a rest and relax day today. I had been doing a lot the last week to enjoy my last days in Toulouse and decided I needed a little break so read a lot and just enjoyed my garret apartment for the day.

In the evening, I did go wandering around down by the Garonne, one of my favorite activities here in Toulouse. It is so picturesque with the lights on the quais reflecting on the river. The Pont Neuf (which means new bridge and ironically was built in the 1600s) was lit up for Christmas so made for another nice picture.

For dinner, I went to La Madeliene de Proust for dinner. It was one of the restaurants I had wanted to try. I had one of those experiences that does not always make me comfortable but the meal and dinner was fun. The restaurant holds 32 seats. When I got there it was only about a quarter full. By the time I was really eating dinner the restaurant was completely full with 28 people. One table for six only had 5 people and two tables for 4 had only 3 people. Of those 28people, I was the only person who was eating alone. I got lots of looks for the other patrons. I had my Kindle so I could read while eating but its some times disconcerting to be the only person who is dining alone in a full but small restaurant.

I have travelled alone a great deal in life for work and pleasure. For work, at least in the United States, it is easy to find restaurants that have bars where you can eat dinner. This makes it a lot easier not to stand out and feel awkward about eating alone. When I traveled around the work backpacking, there were lots of other single travelers and the restaurants where I ate were much more casual and street food types of places (especially in Asia) so again you did to feel out of place.

In Toulouse, I have not seen that many single diners. There have been a couple of times that I have seem a single woman eating alone. I have mostly assumed they were tourists but could be wrong. That is one of the reasons I really liked Le Panache as they had a bar I could it at while dining.

The good thing as that the food at Le Madeliene de Proust was excellent. I had a wonderful meal and enjoyed the experience.

Also for those of you who know abut my obsession with salt, not consuming it but collecting and serving it, the tables all had small coffee/tea cups full of sea salt. I thought it was a very clever idea.