Carcassonne

Thursday, Apr. 20, 2017--Montpellier to Carcassone

The train ran on time today for a change.  It was a TGV, the French fast trains, although it wasn't one of their super fast ones.  About half of the trip was along the Mediterranean coast, then we turned inland.  This is the Midi-Pyrenees region of France, and I could see the snow-topped Pyrenees as we made our way here.

The apartment wasn't ready when I arrived.  Instead, I went to Patrice's apartment to leave my bag.  He said he would bring it with him to the apartment when he came to clean it for me.  That meant I had a little over 2 1/2 hours to wander.

My first stop was the tourist office where I found a brochure for a concert tonight and got a map.  Then I headed to the ticket office to get a ticket for the concert.  After that, I just wandered up and down some of the streets and bought me a chocolate croissant to eat as a snack.

Patrice was ready for me when I arrived at the apartment I have rented here.  It's the nicest apartment so far on this trip.  It is roomy, bright, modern, and has a wonderful private patio in back.

My phone worked when I hooked it up to the WiFi here.  I guess I was right about the throttling of the service at the other place after my first night there.  Maybe they place a limit on data that can be downloaded here.  Plus, in general people here do not have Internet as fast as most of us do in America or as fast as they have in Denmark.  I've tested it everywhere.  Most connections (3 of them) have been at 10 Mbps speed or less.  Two have been at 20 Mbps which is what ATT and Time Warner office as their slowest speed.  Since three of the apartments have been ones that are the primary homes of the persons renting them out, I guess they just live with those slow speeds.

Grocery shopping was on the agenda after getting into the apartment.  I found some really good looking peppered smoked fish fillets (like the first picture in the link and all the others that look like it).  I bought a package of 3.  And I bought a marinated pasta salad to have with them.  To go with that, I bought two Kronenbourg French beers (one 1664 and one Blonde Intense), since I have tried the wine but not the beers here yet.  I also got some eggs, potatoes, and onions for making eggs with hash browns for breakfast.

The concert is right across the street from my apartment.  It doesn't start until 20:30.  I ate dinner but skipped the beer, since I didn't want to have to worry about needing to go to the bathroom while there.  I'll have it when I come home.  I made a mistake and went over there at 7:15 thinking it was already 8:15.  I came back to write up this entry.  I'll save posting it until I am back and have written about the music.
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The concert was interesting.  It was two musicians--a young man from France and an older man from Africa.  The Frenchman played the cymbalum, a piano-type instrument where one hits the wires with hand-held sticks with prongs on the end--a large hammered dulcimer.   The African played an African xylophone-type instrument made of wood, strings and gourds called a balafon chromatique.  Click here for videos of the Frenchman playing.  Click here for videos of the African playing.  Click here, here, here, and here for pieces I heard at the concert tonight when they played together.

Note:  It was nice after the concert just to walk across the street and be home!