Monday is always clean up day. I did my laundry as usual. I am getting better at laundry without a dryer so that is good.

I cleaned the apartment as well. At home, being spoiled, I have someone who cleans my apartment which makes it very easy for me. Here I have to clean the apartment and I actually find that I like doing the work. I have a whole regimen for cleaning as I can be fairly OCD in certain things. I vacuum the floors, there is only one run and the rest is tile or laminate so it does not take very long to get it all vacuumed. I then use the mop to clean the floors. I start in the living room and then do the kitchen, bathroom and toilet. As in most of Europe, the toilet and bathroom are different rooms. The bathtub and sink are easy to clean and get done fairly quickly as does the toilet. I should think about cleaning my apartment in DC as it is not much bigger than the apartment here. The big difference would be dusting as there are few ornamental objects here where I have quite a few in Alexandria.

The weather had turned beautiful again so in keeping with my love of running again, I went out for a run. I needed to do a long run and wanted to change up the route as their are many good routes to run, I decided to run along the Garonne out southwest and then run back on the Canal de Midi. The big issue of this route was how to get from the Garonne to the Canal de Midi as they do not run right next to each other. The solution was to use the Oncopole – a cable car that runs over a hill between the Garonne and the Canal de Midi.

I had wanted to go out and see the Oncopole but had not on any of my previous trips here. I was not actually sure of how to get to one end of the Oncopole. I had seen the where I could get the Oncopole from the Canal de Midi but not the Garonne side. When running the Half Marathon, we ran past the stop on the Garonne side. I ran out to the Garonne side – about 5 miles from my apartment. I caught the Oncopole which cost 2 euros as it is part of the Tisseo public transport system. The ride was a good way to see parts of Toulouse and the Pyrenees.

After the ride, I ran to the Canal de Midi to head back to Toulouse and the apartment.

As I was running along the Canal, I ran into a group of people trying to move a Viking long boat into a mooring area of the Canal. They had run into some difficultly and the draft of the boat was too deep and the boat was stuck on the bottom. They were moving things around the boat in hopes of rising the stern of the longboat to get it into the mooring. The path along the Canal was blocked so I could not run back in the direction I needed. I waited a little while and watched the activity and then turned around and run back to a bridge over the Canal and switched to running on the other side of the canal.

I met a man watching the activity as well and he explained exactly what the problem was which I had deduced from just watching. The interesting part is that he said the group had sailed the long boat to New York last year and it took 28 days. I am not sure I would like to take to the Atlantic in the long boat.

I ended up doing a 12 mile run with the ride on the Oncopole as nice break in the run,

I cooked a nice dinner and read for the rest of the day.