Toulouse
Hi! I am in Toulouse.
What is this?
Toulouse, a city in France.
France. A maritime power. You know: ratatouille, frogs, poor welfare system, Joan of fucking Arc
Well, you didn’t like it, did you?
Yeah, but it was close to Andorra, so I decided to stop by. And well, it’s awesome! I thought all of France was like filthy Paris, but it’s absolutely fantastic, a medieval city.
Look:
Not bad. Well, go ahead and write, I’m working a bit, but will read everything once I finish.
Oh, now you’ll want to come here with me. Check it out:
Toulouse is cool cuz you just walk down an ordinary street, and then — bam, what a house:
You come to it, thinking: “What kind of house is this? How long has it been standing?” And there are no plaques because it’s not a monument; the whole city is like that!
I asked an architect, and here’s what he says:
Mitya, here’s a house in Toulouse. What on earth is this?
This is Fachwerk.
I guess 17th century.
Unlikely to be older, the walls would have crumbled.
Huge
Guess what, people still live here to this day.
You think I don’t know?
On one hand, it’s cool, of course.
Like, old-school houses, it must be nice to sit on the balcony, drink with a in the morning. On the other hand, it’s all leaning :)) and the sticks and boards are rotting. Not allowed to have an air conditioner by law.
Well, just to try, I wouldn’t mind living there for a while.
But that’s just a freaking barn
Well, there are newer houses too, but the windows everywhere look like they were taken from a cellar. This isn’t Moscow, here you’ll be fined for plastic windows :))
Alright, I’m here. Finished my tasks.
Wow, barns you say?! I would totally live there!
Oh yeah, let me send more
Mitya, what’s that?
Some provincial French clusterfuck
I doubt that this can be defined as a style at all.
Lol, let’s just write down: provincial French cluster-fuck.
Wow, THIS is a clusterfuck?!
How does he know the difference? They’re all cool!
I don’t know myself, I like them all
Well, he’s an architect, so he probably knows what he’s talking about. Remember those plaques he had? Like icons with Jesus and signed “Save and Protect.” I think dude knows his stuff.
Request more!
Well, this one looks like a barn as well. I can’t ask him about every single photo. But once again, I like how it looks.
And look, the colors are amazing!
By the way, you were studying French, right? What does it say here? Financial hotel?
Nooo, the word “Hôtel” meant “house,” and later it became “hotel.” The sign says “House of Finances,” so it’s probably the Ministry of Finance.
It’s useful to know French in general. Many words have come from it. Otherwise, you can, like, walk into the Ministry of Finance and ask how much a night costs :))
They won’t get it!
Wow, I didn’t know that. Another close-up of a sign:
Like a sign from 17th century!
Yeah, such colors throughout the city, just chic. Last time I saw colors like this was in Jeddah when I was hanging out with the . Here they’re these delicate shades of pink.
The best thing is that all the streets are like that, you walk as if in a medieval city.
All right! Now I want to go too
The views are just stunning.
Carousel :)) Hahaha, well, that’s rubbish, OK.
Look at this bike. Like a postcard!
Awesome views, it’s even better than in Germany. By the way, the houses are similar, they also have this Fachwerk or whatever. Now I know what it’s called :)) I thought it was some kind of wallpaper on the walls.
Andrew
What do you eat there?
Oh, well, mostly fast food. I don’t have much time and it’s expensive. In France, there are many such corners where two streets meet at an angle, and in the corner either a nice cafe or just a fine place, but I didn’t sit there, I prefer to walk around.
Or you just walk and like — ancient columns!!! AAAAAH!
Alright, ENOUGH. Or I’ll start crying. Let’s talk about something else. How are people there in general? How do they feel about Russians?
Oh, now I’ll tell youuuu.
Get ready.
Fire up!
In short, I settled in a hostel there, well, a decent one, a house like in the photos. A room with 8 beds, like what I usually go for, I’m a bum after all.
The room is on the second floor. And there’s an amazing balcony, where you can sit on a chair and watch the street. So, I started hanging out there, scrolling through photos on Instagram. And here comes a pigeon poo right on my leg :)) I looked up, and there was a whole flock of pigeons. I had to go clean up, everyone LOLed at me 🤣
Hahaha, no way!
That’s why you call ’em bugs, LOL.
I guess :)) God knows :)) Well, I washed it off, sure.
Well, how did you wash it off? Or did it burn through ?
Yes, yes, I washed it off, but that’s not all. Btw, here’s my leg and the pigeon’s asshole still sticks out from the roof.
Precise aim, I must say :))
So, well, listen, the pigeon is nothing.
What happened next. At night, everyone went to sleep, everyone came back at different times, some early, some wasted around midnight, you know, as usual in hostels.
So, I wake up around 3 AM. You know, I sleep poorly. And I hear like a MOAN. I mean, a genuine moan, not like in a dream when you see a nightmare, but like when a person is feeling really unwell, like from a tough flu.
I froze listening. I see that my neighbor moans in sleep. I think, well, okay, maybe he feels bad, but what can I do, right?
Then I sit up a bit to see what’s going on with him. I slept on a top bunk, and he did too. And I look, and he’s COMPLETELY NAKED.
Considering that it was +36, I thought, well, okay, it’s hot, he undressed, whatever. But then he starts GETTING UP.
Damn, imagine the naked guy, hairy and all, getting out of bed in the middle of the night, climbing down to the floor, AND HEADING TOWARDS THE BALCONY.
Haha, oh, come on, really?
I froze and watched all of this, thinking, “What the fuck, what is he going to do next?” And he went out onto the balcony, and that’s it — he’s gone! I think, did he jump from the second floor or what? And then I hear a trickling sound.
Water pouring onto the street in a thin stream, that was the sound. And then I get it, he’s just standing there...
AND PISS FROM THE BALCONY
Right to the street! Fully naked!
Ahh biiiiiitch
So, he peed, basically. Then he went back into the room, knocked everybody’s bags off the table, went to the bed and SAT HIS NAKED BUTT ON A GUY’S FACE!!!!!! AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!1 The guy woke up screaming something, but he didn’t care, climbed back into the bed, and fell asleep.
Geeeez I just laughed MY ASS OFF
I was so shocked by this, I couldn’t sleep all night afterward. Too bad I couldn’t take a video, it was very dark. That guy was a lunatic, that’s how you live in French hostels, what next, someone takes a knife and stabs you? Screw that
I also thought, good thing I was on the top bunk, or he could have sat on my face with his butt. Ewww
Oh, too bad I didn’t record it; it would have gone viral, hilarious! 🤣
Thank god he didn’t shit on someone’s face :))
So in the morning I woke up and another guy had his penis out of his pants; he slept just like that.
I’m just shocked. This could only happen in France, really. I’ve traveled so much and this has never happened before
Oh well, why did I ask for the story? :)) Let’s talk about the city instead. It was really nice.
Sure, I have plenty to share.
By the way, what annoys me is that the French don’t speak English. Even if they know it, when you say something like “Hello”, they respond with their “Bonjour.” And when you make an order, for example, at a cafe, they listen to you in English but respond in French, and you have no idea what they said :)) It’s like they intentionally do it; it’s really their manner, thinking that French is superior.
It’s a well-known topic. They are proud patriots, they will never speak English, they fought against the English for a long time, it’s all about patriotism. Even though they do know it! But they choose not to speak it on principle!
In McDonald’s, they don’t allow you to use the restroom without making a purchase. You have to buy something. Not everywhere, but in Spain it’s not like that.
Well, that’s how it is everywhere now in Europe, except for us. And what about migrants, like in Paris?
Oh, yes, I wanted to tell you about migrants. Not like Paris, sure. Only black people there now. But in Toulouse there are many, too. There was a square near the hotel, and it was filled with Arabs, everything in Arabic, even the signs.
Overall the road from the hotel to the city center is a bit sketchy. One time, as I was walking, and sitting there, and I pass by, and they shout something after me, like asking how I was doing or whatever. I just walked past, but they kept shouting. Later, on my way back, the same thing happened, like they were mocking me or something. And then other people sitting yelled after me. I didn’t go there at night, didn’t want to risk it, fuck them, they might have a knife...
It was a festival that day, and I was about to sleep when I heard about it. Well, I thought, I should go. I got ready and went, but they had fenced off the square with a net barrier. You could only watch from behind the fence. And there were police officers all around with their rifles, walking in groups like special forces.
Later, I read that there was a terrorist attack somewhere in France that day. Someone even got killed, and they had cordoned off everything. It’s unsettling. Europe is also turning into a prison to some extent. Well, it’s still better than Russia, but there are troubles as well.
Oh, yes, they’ve been bombarding Europe with terrorist attacks. They’ve gone too far with their tolerance. They should at least set up some checkpoints.
No, you’re wrong. Checkpoints are useless, Varlamov wrote that they’ll just blow up the line in front of the metal detector and it won’t make any difference. There are many migrants, but now it’s not they who organize the terrorist attacks, but rather their children who have been living in the country since birth.
So who knows, well, we also had a wave of terrorist attacks, and then it passed. I think it will be the same, they will figure it out :)
Well, what else to say. There is a castle there. I don’t like these museum-type castles.
Here’s another ruined monastery from the 13th century. That’s just .
Oh, and we studied this one in our French courses, Basilique Saint-Sernin. It’s from the 12th century or something, and it’s still standing. How did they build like that back then? Something can stand for so many years and not collapse at all, while here we build houses that fall apart within a year. Well, of course, it’s a temple, not just a house, obviously. We do have some buildings like that here too, but it’s not the same.
Yes, we also have churches from that time period, but in Europe as a whole, there are much older ones.
The ceilings there are...
Oh.
In short, you get it.
Toulouse is really impressive.
Haha, France is like that. Have you fallen in love with it now?
Yes, I thought everything there would be like Paris, a miserable shit, but it turned out to be really cool.
Andrew
Can I ask you, please?
Yes
Can you write a story with memes like we’re chatting right now?
What? No way, dog
