Bon jour!!  Here is the latest addition of our travelog to keep you up to date.
 
Andrew started "school" last week with his tutor, Shalah.  He goes to her house for two hours Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  He seemed to enjoy himself and is very excited to be learning some French.  She speaks five languages and says that she will teach Andrew all he wants to learn.  She is quite impressed by him and thinks that he is very intelligent because he is so verbal and has such a large vocabulary.  I think she is enjoying herself as much as Andrew.
 
Dave tried to renew our van rental on Wednesday.  He was at the airport for three and a half hours!!!  When he tried to pay for the old van (we weren't sad to turn it in.  It still smelled of Michael's throw up), the nimrod at the counter charged him in francs but the computer is in Euros (since they no longer exist after midnight on the 31st).  So instead of charging 1800 Euros (~$1500), she charged 10,000 Euros (~$8,800).  A big difference.  That amount put a hold on the credit card (which we hadn't used for 3 years).  So she tried to scan it again, this time with the right amount.  It wouldn't go through because there was a hold on the card.  On top of all that, they wouldn't let him make an international phone call from the desk.  He had to call me, I called the US (nothing was open yet), and then he had to call me back because they wouldn't give him the number.  We still haven't gotten it worked out.  But we did get a new van (that has a leak in the coolant.  The light keeps coming on) and they have the smelly one.
 
Saturday we started very slowly.  We didn't do much of anything in the morning and then wondered around Tournefeulle until lunch.  After naps we went to a festival in downtown Tournefeulle.  It was the strangest thing we have seen.  First of all, there were kids everywhere!!  It's the first time we have seen any more than a few children.  The kids were dressed up like it was halloween.  Most of the kids were dressed up as rats or mice.  There were papermache' mice around, hanging from the trees and lampposts.  Then a huge papermache' cat appeared.  But the mice didn't run.  This guy (dressed up as a mouse) sang to him and he followed.  Then the mice, the cats, and all of the people who were watching paraded through town to the park.  There they put the cat on a post and BURNED him.  A huge blaze complete with fireworks.  It was very strange.  We have asked a number of people what it was about, but no one can tell us.  If I find out, I will let you know.
 
From there we were off to our "support group" meeting.  This is a group called AIT or Americans In Toulouse (although there were a few Brits and Australians there as well as a few French women) and the meeting was a Chili cook-off.  We had a good time even though we left early because we had the boys with us (we really need to find a sitter).
 
On Sunday, we took a day trip.  We were off in an Westerly direction this time.  Our first stop was the city of Auch.  This is where d'Artagnan of the Three Musketeers was from (although he changed his name to d'Artagnan and he was really from a small town near there) and there is a statue of him in the city.
 
Our first stop was at the cathedral of Ste Marie.  It was a beautiful church.  The most impressive were the choir stalls.  There were 167 of them and they were carved out of oak with biblical figures, as well as some mythological themes.  It took many men 50 years to carve.  It was truly beautiful.  We have some pictures but they really don't do it justice.
 
Then we were off to Fleurance which was supposed to be a fortified city.  We drove around for a while, but never saw any evidence of such.  So we moved on to Lectoure, which is supposed to have a really great museum.  We drove around this town that is smaller than Grandville for 45 minutes looking for the museum and a thirteenth century fountain.  We couldn't find either.  Everything was hiding from us!!  We did happen to stumble upon the Office de Tourism.  I went in and asked where the Museum was.  She said "La" meaning right there.  It was in the next building.  So we went and tried the door she had pointed to.  It was locked.  We tried the other side of the building and found a very nice Cathedral.  After checking it out for a bit, I went and asked again.  She showed me the same door!!  This time she told me to "Tournez et Pousez," Turn and push the handle.  We did.  We were now in the city offices, but there was no one there.  We did find the entrance to the museum though, an ominous looking gate into the vaulted cellars of the building.  It was locked.  I went back to the office de tourism yet again, this time to tell her there was no one there.  This time she told me to ring the bell inside the door.  Fortunately, there was another (French) family there now too.  We all went back over and rang the bell.  A person came out and said a lot very quickly in French and closed the door.  I understood "no tour" and that was it.  The other family took pity on us and by pointing at our watches told us that it would open in half an hour.
 
So, trying to decide what to do while walking back to the car, the tourism lady spotted us.  She came running out of the office to see what was wrong now!!  We tried to explain it to her and she apologized (a rare occurrence in France).  I asked her where the fountain was and she pointed down (literally) the street.  Sure enough after a fairly steep descent (we had already driven down this road) we found the fountain.  Not exactly what we were expecting.  Not a fountain, but a naturally occurring spring were people used to gather their water.  It was pretty though and the whole trip took half an hour so we could go one the tour.
 
It was well worth the wait.  This town has been ravaged many times so there is city on top of city on top of city.  An Archeologists dream!!  The first room was devoted to prehistoric times, fossils, and mastodon bones, etc.  The second room was from the Gaelic period.  There were vases and such from the first century.
 
The next room was the room of the Pagan cult. There had been a temple to Jupiter in Lectour so they had an alter and the lower half of a statue of Jupiter.  They also had lots of alters for bull worship.
 
The next room was the most impressive.  It had many funeral monuments, including one of the first brick sarcophaguses (the influence of Christianity).  Most impressive was the REAL tomb they had found here from the FIRST century!!  You could look right into this hole in the ground.  It was amazing.
 
There were a couple more rooms of sarcophaguses from different periods in history, a mosaic room with some beautiful mosaics from the "gallo-roman" period, and a room with artifacts relating to the daily life during the Roman era.  Andrew was very impressed with the coins dating as far back as 14 BC to 700 ad.
 
It was a very impressive museum!!  Too bad it is so well hidden and not well advertised.  I was lucky to have heard about it.
 
Well, that's it for this week's tales.  We be sure to keep you up to date on any new adventures.