One of the things that I had grappled with in my stays in Toulouse is not having “friends”. A great deal of it is me and my choice. I have not gone out of my way to meet people and join groups that might open opportunities to meet people. Some issues are involved, one is that I do not speak French well enough to have in-depth conversations so that limits the opportunities. The second is that I am only here temporarily so working hard to make friends seems not really a top priority. Third is that I do not really want to be part of an ex-pat community. I would rather be involved with the French.

All that being said, I am beginning to build a community in Toulouse. I cannot say that the people I enter act with are friends but they recognize me, we can chat and I feel connected. The two main groups that I interact with are the guys at La Panache who are incredibly nice and friendly and the running group.

Elliot has been a fantastic person as we run together during the running group. He likes to speak English and puts up with me trying to speak French. It is not always easy to run and translate for either of us but we make it work.

Today, I had another experience of community and it made me feel more like I am becoming part of Toulouse. I had been debating running in the afternoon. I was being on the lazier side but finally decided that I should get up and do it. I am very grateful and happy that I did decide to run. Life turns out to be very serendipitous!

I had just started running and was heading for the running path along the Garonne River when I turned a corner and ran into two of the runners in the Run in Toulouse running group. I had chatted with one of them on an earlier run and then ran into running home after the run group one evening and we chatted on that run. Noam asked if I wanted to join them on their run. It was quite an unexpected offer but definitely nice. We discussed where they were running and how far. They were trying to complete a 20k run which I was not going that far but they were at least half way through the run and said I should join them for a portion of it. We ended up running 5k together. It was a very fun run and made me feel like I was more a just an anonymous runner. Noam and Nordine both were willing to take a picture of our run together and I learned a little more about them. Noam speaks better English than Nordine but Nordine did try and converse. I tried in French as well. Noam is now even following me on IG as I told him I posted everyday during my stay.

Also, from my last post, I discussed the young man at Le Petit Marais who I have encountered during my walking.

All of this is making me feel more at home and a part of Toulouse.

The rest of the day was my regular Sunday of grocery shopping at the markets and going to church.

I cooked a very nice dinner for myself after the run and had a lovely evening. I cooked Sole Meunière and eggplant.

This is going to sound so like me and first world but I wish I had my fish forks and knives as the sole had bones in it and I needed to remove them to eat it. On a previous trip to Europe, I had bought fish forks and knives so that I could eat whole fish easier when I was in the United States. I use them often when I am home. The Airbnb does not have those so I had to filet the fish using a regular knife and fort and it worked out fine.