France Tales » Toulouse

Le Printemps de Rire- Cafe Theatre de Minimes, Toulouse

Owen — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:55:03 +0000

There is a theater festival each year in Toulouse called Le Printemps de rire. There are theater events around the city. On Saturday I went to a community theater in the Minimes neighborhood called Café Theatre de Minimes. We saw a play called Les Celebataires. It was about a group of 3 friends who are all single and their trials and tribulations dating and finding a mate. In the end 2 of the 3 end up together in a relationship. It was a comedy and was pretty funny. It started out strong but get less funny as the play went on. It has been a few months since I have seen a play in French and this time I understood all of it, except for some of the plays on words.

You can have food and drink while you watch and the crowd was a nice mix of people. The show costs 16€ but you can buy a season pass where you get 5 plays plus one free for 50€, so it is not that expensive if you like theater. The show was completely full by the way. It was nice to be there and see people so excited and really into a small scale theater production.

One drawback was that the chairs were not very comfortable, notably uncomfortable, and if you are further than halfway back, you don’t see so well. Other than that I recommend checking out the Cafe Theatre de Minimes.

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English in Toulouse- Friday Afternoons

Owen — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:32:46 +0000

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Bapz Tea House

Do you want to practice your English? Are you a native English speaker looking to connect socially with other English speakers? Whatever your reasons are, come to English in Toulouse on Friday afternoons at Bapz Tea House from 4-7. Each Friday English in Toulouse meets informally at Bapz. No registration is required, just come and hang out. Coffee, tea, pastries, etc are all served at Bapz. We are the big table to the right against the wall in the middle when you walk in. It will make sense when you get there. We don’t wear signs.

English in Toulouse site

Don’t get lost! Here’s a map to help you.

View Larger Map

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Steal This Film at the Utopia in Toulouse

Owen — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:25:48 +0000

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Steal This Film is a documentary about file sharing and the grand daddy of all file sharing sites The Pirate Bay. It outlines many of the legal problems that The Pirate Bay has had and its current state. Steal This Film also looks at communication throughout the centuries and draw some very interesting comparisons. Of course one can imagine that the blank cassette tape was greeted with the same welcome as P2P and file sharing networks but did you know the printing press was too. Scribes thought it would bring about the decline of their trade and certainly the fine art of literature, does the argument begin to sound similar yet?

After the film there was a discussion of current legislation in France aimed at stopping file sharing. Luckily none of it will work. The presenters also outlined some strategies in order to compensate the artists for their work while still preserving the nature of file sharing. They did a case study on 9 Inch Nails releasing an entire album for free via P2P networks but choosing to sell a few hundred collectors sets they put together. Since they did it all themselves with no middle men, READ music industry types, they made more money than if they had sold a comparable number of units but through traditional music industry channels. That was not surprising but certainly an eye opener. The problem isn’t file sharing, it is the bloated and parasitic nature of the music industry.

If you have not been to the Utopia Theater in Toulouse yet you should go. It is a true art house cinema, the likes of which are constantly in decline. The cinema always shows the original version and not dubbed versions. There is an enormous calendar with movies from all over the world covering all styles and genres. Often they have discussions in the theater after the films. It was a real treat to go.

If you want to download Steal This Film or its sequel Steal This Film II you can follow either of these two links. They wholeheartedly encourage you to steal and share this film, in fact they will mock you if you fail to do so.

Finally I also made acquaintance with a local Toulouse organization called Toulibre which is about the promotion, dissemination, and defense of free and open source software for computers. I am going to their Party January 7th for the galette des rois. Articulate and honest, the speaker really was thoroughly entertaining and precise in his details of all that is available.

All in all this evening was a huge success for me. Check out the links if you have any interest at all.

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First Sunday of the month, Free Museums in Toulouse

Owen — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 12:00:07 +0000

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Each 1st Sunday of the month the national museums are free in Toulouse. Get up early and get a good start on the day. It is great because you can go to 3-4 museums in the day. If you go and one is not your cup of tea then just leave. The museums are free the first Sunday of each month so you can move on to the next one. When the weather is not great people do it like a social gathering place. It can be nice to see and meet people but annoying if you are trying to see the art.

Today I am going to see 3 musuems:

Musée St Raymond

Les Abattoirs

Musée de l’affiche

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Bicycle Salon last Saturday in Toulouse

Owen — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 11:47:31 +0000

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On Place du Capitole in Toulouse last week there was a salon devoted to other forms of transportation. Over the course of a few days buses, subways, trams, bicycles, walking were all profiled as ways to “deplacer”.

Last Saturday I went to the salon and it was all about bicycles. There were folding bicycles, electric assist bicycles, recumbent bicycles, bicycle bag vendors selling better bags for commuting, bicycle covers like the ones you see for scooters so you can ride in the rain and stay dry, etc. There were lots of interesting booths all offering improvements to the way we commute on bicycles.

There was even a bicycle obstacle course so you could try out the different types of bikes or show off your French pedestrian avoidance skills. I have to say the pedestrians are more dangerous here in Toulouse than the car and bus drivers. Someone should make a game like “Frogger”, that old Atari game, but with bicycles and French pedestrians. Yet another project to begin, not finish, and then stess out about, so for now I will leave it as a dream.

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English in Toulouse

Owen — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 18:59:28 +0000

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English in Toulouse is a group that is totally bilingual in French and English. They are located in Toulouse, France. Before we moved here Jean-Jacques went to a French Fridays meeting. He met some really great people and had a very nice time. They try to strive for a group that has a high level of fluency in both languages so you can practice one or the other and not get bogged down with beginners. For some reason we didn’t manage to go back to the group until some 7 months after we lived here. Visit the website here. They held a picnic at a park in the Jolimont neighborhood of Toulouse, See picture below. If you live in Toulouse and want to practice either English or French sign up for French Fridays here. It is a very nice group of people. This picnic was called Christmas in July. It is based on the idea that in the southern hemisphere Christmas falls in the summer time so the whole snow motif doesn’t make sense, so in July in the southern hemisphere there is snow, if at all, and the typical “Christmas” weather. It was a hot day in Toulouse though.

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Bastille Day, 14 Juillet, traveling in France

Owen — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:33:42 +0000

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We drove home from Figeac today to Toulouse. We were expecting that there might have been a lot of traffic. There was none, pas de tout. Instead of going back to the Autoroute we drove a very scenic route. We drove from Figeac to Villefranche de Rouerge, Cordes-sur-Ciel, Gaillac, and then to Toulouse. Only the last part of the trip from Gaillac to Toulouse was on the Autoroute. I am experimenting with Google maps and it’s photos feature. Here is a Google map of our route and some random photos along the way. I can’t make the photos show up along the route on the embedded map but if you click “View Larger Map” the original Google map pens and you can see all the pictures. Hope you like it.

View Larger Map

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Tour de France videos from around Figeac

Owen — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 06:57:00 +0000

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Yesterday the Tour de France came through Figeac on its way to Toulouse. Here are some Tour de France videos from around Figeac. The Tour de France overwhelmed the small town of Figeac but it was fun.

Yes it was raining.

No we weren’t driving this car.

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Tour de France, Figeac to Toulouse

Owen — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:16:50 +0000

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Figeac is a lovely town where the Lot and the Aveyron intersect. We are spending this weekend in Figeac. It just so happened that the Tour de France 2008 was coming through Figeac this weekend. Figeac is a stop on the Tour de France 2008 on Saturday July 12th. An old friend is doing a stage in Figeac and we came for the long weekend. Here are some pictures of the lovely house his friends are restoring. I will have some better pictures soon.

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Tour de France 2008 videos

Owen — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:24:30 +0000

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The Tour de France 2008 is coming to Toulouse soon. Of course I won’t be able to have Tour de France 2008 videos from Toulouse as it hasn’t come yet, but I can put other Tour de France 2008 videos here.

Tour de France 2008 videos:
Here are some videos that are great, well produced, and in English, but they cannot be embedded so you have to follow the link.

Daily Motion Videos

Parcours Tour de France 2008
envoyé par TaiGer

Tour de France 2008 – étape 5
envoyé par GrimpeurRouleur

Youtube Videos
In English