Halloween is celebrated in Toulouse but it is not as big a holiday as it is in the United States. I am not sure this is the case everywhere in Toulouse or in France but the children Trick or Treat at the stores and restaurants not so much the homes. This could be that most of the homes in the city center are actually apartment buildings and require a fob or a code to enter. When I was having dinner at La Panache, a number of children arrived and Ervin and Enzo gave out candy. I saw a number of children stopping at other shops and businesses for treats.

Someone had set this up and was taking pictures of the people in the windows.

There were a number of young people dressed in costumes and wandering the city. As I walked home there seemed to be somewhat of a street party going on in the Place St. Pierre. It seemed spontaneous but somewhat unusual. There were two people on the top of a van waving black flags, one Palestinian flag being waved by the crowd, loud music and strobe lights. I could not really tell if it was a protest or a party.

Earlier in the day, there was an issue in the Garonne near the steps at the Place St. Pierre. There was a large police presence with rescue divers and a rescue jet ski. There were ambulances as well. I am guessing it was a river rescue but I did not see who was being rescued. There were lots of onlookers but I decided I did not want to be a lookee loo and so just kept walking.

I decided earlier in my stay to sign up for the Toulouse Half Marathon and it is this weekend. I went to the Place de Capitole where the “expo” is set up to pick up my bib and my t-shirt. The expo is mainly packet pick-up. There is one little area where Joma (a sporting goods store) was selling running gear. There were a couple of other exhibitors but nothing large.

I was surprised as there was a sign saying there were 35,000 runner between the various races – marathon, half-marathon and 10k. That seems an inordinately large number of runners for the streets of Toulouse. I have run or walked most parts of the course in my regular ambling around the city and they have tried to stay on the larger streets but they are still not super wide. One good things is that the different distances have different start times so the runners will be somewhat staggered. Also they have wave starts that will help.

Dinner as usual was at Le Panache. Enzo is running the half marathon as well and we are in the same corral for the start. It should be fun to run with him.

Dinner was usual was very good the deconstructed lemon meringue pie was fantastic.