For our first dinner out we went to the Capitole square which has restaurants along one side. After perusing the menus (le carte) of each we decided to eat at Le Florida which had Foie Gras and Magret du Canard. The Foie Gras was excellent and the Canard OK. I'm afraid we've been spoiled by Duck Breast at Le Square Cafe in Paris. We returned to the Junior hotel and Natalya went straight to bed. I had to get ready for class and stayed up late to work on curriculum.


At 3:30 am the electricity went off so I fumbled around until I found my way to bed. The next morning the wifi didn't work (nor did the hot water) but it was already checkout time so I paid for another night. Needing electricity (who would have thought that important?) and wifi we spent the day looking for another hotel. The Hotel Sernin around the corner (also over a restaurant and facing the Church) was very nice but because of a rugby match and a marathon they decided to bump their rates by 30% which
didn't seem like a really good idea to me. We also went by Hotel des Artes which gets good reviews in Let's Go. They didn't have wifi nor could we see a room so we moved on. We landed at Albert 1er (pronounced Albert Premier) which turned out to be excellent for the same money as the Hotel Junior. However, their wifi was on the brink too. Since we had already paid we went back to Hotel Junior for the night and I prepared for work. For those who've never stayed in a French hotel
they're something else. The process for making a French hotel goes something like this. You take the standard human and draw a line around them in both laying and standing positions. Now you place both drawings next to each other and draw a square around them. This is your hotel room. The person standing is the area given to the bathroom and the person laying is the area given to you when sleeping. If the architect is particularly generous he may allow the door to the room swing inward.

My previous post was titled "And I thought I was going to France". I said this because this city is as if someone took France, Barcelona and a little of Mexico and blended it on high. The street signs are in Spanish (I think, it may be Catalan) and French. The recording on the Metro that announces the stations is in French and the second language as well. Not to mention these people can't dress themselves. Are we in France? I'm not sure.