Catching up...

Well I have been very busy. My business meetings went well and all was done on Friday. But I really didn't have any time to sightsee. On Saturday, I was lucky enough to visit Lourdes. Being Catholic it was a very moving experience, it brought me to tears for no reason. Lourdes is where the Virgin Mary made an apparition to Bernadette back in 1858.

The journey begins with me waking up at 430am to get ready to catch a taxi at 530am so I can catch the 609am train to Lourdes. I arrive at the train station with enough time but the machine will not accept my credit card (not a single one, even though it said it would accept VISA). I went to almost every single machine (about 15) and tried it. It kept saying "CARTE NON GEREE" which I didn't know what it meant. I figured it meant that the card was not good. Check for my self, I need a french pocket dictionary along with my phrase book. I looked it up now that I'm online and it means card not managed. I'm guessing that it means they can't accept cards that aren't French banks or something like that. I had used it the previous day, so I know it works in France. I miss my train and I know not to get on it without a ticket or I would be fined. I was about to go and ask the information desk when I see that that the ticket agent booth lights turn on, they open at 7am and the next train is at 715am, so I wait by the door so I can be sure to get my ticket before the train leaves. With my little French I manage to get a ticket and I'm on my way. I get to sit with three guys but they all speak French so they little I can understand is are on their bikes and they are riding around but I wasn't sure where, they had maps of the area. One of the guys reminded me of the actor who plays Harry Potter. They get off 2 exits before Lourdes. More on them later.

Here are some pics from Lourdes. It is a beatiful town, rich in history and also very picturesque.







After an all day of walking around the sights, I returned and who do I see at the train station. Yeah, the three French guys and they start talking to me and asking me for my ticket as they are now the new "conductors" They are pretty funny and we end up on the same car, but this time we get to each have our own seats so that we can take a nap. I was exhausted by this time and finally slept. When I got back to my hotel, I slept for 12 hours. Something I had not done in over 3 weeks. I met up for lunch with one of my coworkers who works here in Toulouse, actually is 45 minutes away. Travis, his wife Stacy and their son Liam went with me to see around a little of the town and got to go to this beautiful church.



We then went on to see the gateway that is where Travis works and we get telemetry for our satellites. After dropping his family off he took me to the Space Museum in Toulouse, I had tons of fun and got to walk around different things, including the mock up of the MIR station and also the new module that was just shipped to the international space station a couple of weeks ago, it's name is Colombus.





They also have information on Globalstar, which was pretty cool to come all this way and find information on it. Turns out that in that space museum, anything that has been made here in Toulouse and it's related to space it will be shown. The payload of our satellites were made, and that's why it's shown here.



Tomorrow I will go to this town nearby it's called Carcassonne. It's a small medival town that has castles and such. I will try and update tomorrow, but if I can't I will show pics after. Here is a link to some more info on Carcassonne

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcassonne

It's 1am and I'm off to bed, I have to wake up early to make my 750am train.