OK that came out wrong! (the picture will be explained later ;-)
What I meant was that the overly polite style of community action (possibly also known as inaction) popular in Seattle is a problem and the clearest evidence of this is squashed pigeons! Yes squashed! You know that when the pigeons are having a hard time staying out of the way that you have a serious problem for the overly polite.
Lucky for me Billy grew up in Manhattan so he has that big city style of walking down. You just pretend, no not pretend, actually see yourself as "Moses" and KNOW that the sea will part if you walk into it. If I'm right behind him it's fine but I have found myself waiting patiently on a corner and he is all ready several blocks away . It would not surprise me if he stepped on a pigeon sometime.
Today we rode out with the GPS attached on the bike and a map. It is starting to be over kill with the direction finding equipment. We took it one step farther on our trip to the coast. We had GPS, two maps, and directions cached on the iTouch if we had had nothing the signs were very good and it would have been fine.
This time we explored part of what the map said was a bike trail on one of the lessor little rivers, the Le Touch. ( no joke ;-D) I did not bring my road bike and this is one of the reasons, a bike trail can be a nicely paved trail, dirt path, or some old cobble stone thing. It was fun and we connected with one of the main drags and got back in time for "Les Voix du Midi".
It was very cool. Five hundred, or cinqante cent, singers in groups big and small started out at 2 pm from squares and intersections on the periphery of the city. Toulouse is a very old city that is roughly shaped like a wheel. For three hours the groups worked their way toward the center of the town stopping to sing along the way. Some had costumes some did not all sang beautifully.
My favorite group was a group that did not sing. They came down the street like a Mardi Gras parade lead by a guy on stilts (see picture above) that looked like he was walking on two "pogo" sticks. Behind him dancing and drumming were about thirty people of varying abilities. Some in wheel chairs, some walking, and some just digging the vibe. They were all dressed in the most outrageous colors it was truly Awesome! Meanwhile the guy on the "pogo" sticks was leaping and jumping in the air it was spectacular!
When we got to the center of the town, Place du Capitole, 500 hundred people plus the crowd, sang two songs. One was in Catalan the other in French they were both old songs about the love of the Mid-Pyrenees! Then we beat it back to the apartment at warp speed and this time I stayed with Billy the whole time!
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