Albi is a small town located within the south of France to the northeast of Toulouse. It is home to a beautiful cathedral and the notable Toulouse-Lautrec museum.
The trip that started it all. The first weekend into my study abroad semester in Toulouse, I was invited to travel with my newly acquainted Singaporean friends. Our French teacher mentioned in class that week that she was from the town of Albi. Since she spoke quite highly of her hometown, we booked a train ride for Sunday morning and planned to spend most of the day there. Though I didn't know them well yet, this would be my first significant interactions with Javier, Hubert, Shaofeng, and Alvin, as well as my fellow Florida Gator in Kendal. Another kid from the National University of Singapore joined us, Ivan, but he was very quiet for much of the trip, and we didn't bond much the rest of my time abroad.
I woke up at 8am and was met with the most beautiful sunrise on the horizon. We took the bus in Toulouse to the train station, and after just over an hour on the slow-moving regional train, we finally arrived in Albi. As we walked from the train station in Albi to the town center, the Sainte-Cecile Cathedral of Albi rose up above the trees.
We made our way to the entrance to the cathedral and stepped inside. Since it was Sunday, many church-goers were already inside listening to the sermon in either French or Latin. I stood in the back and listened for a little while, and at some point even got to witness a baptism ceremony. The inside of the cathedral was really cool too, especially since it was one of the first European cathedrals I'd been in at the time, and the first that was genuinely part of everyday life rather than a tourist site.
After some time inside the cathedral, we looked on TripAdvisor to see what else there was to do in Albi. We saw there was a garden at the top of the list, as well as the Toulouse-Lautrec museum. Conveniently, all were within a 2 minute walk of the town center. The gardens, called Les Jardins de la Berbie in French, were cool to walk around and take in the views over the river behind them. It was honestly a nice way to just unwind and find comfort in being by myself, alone to my own thoughts and free to take in the world around me. At some point, the other guys managed to take a selfie with me and Kendal in the background, and then we joined them up at the top for a retake shortly after.
Following the gardens, we wandered around the Toulouse-Lautrec museum, which was home to many artworks of the Albi-born artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, as well as several other artists. I finished walking around the museum well before everyone else, so decided to sit down on a bench out in the town center and enjoy the beautiful weather that day. At one point, some lady came up to me and said something in French, which I thought was her asking me if she could sit down on the bench too. But then she started pulling something out of her bag like she was about to sell me some drugs or something. I quickly waved my hand at her and she walked away. To this day, I still have no idea what she said to me or what she wanted to do. Funny experience though.
At this point in the day, we were all pretty hungry and decided to grab some lunch. I managed to find a nice restaurant tucked away in a courtyard somewhere, and everyone seemingly enjoyed their meals. As we walked back to the town center in search of something more to do, we saw a long line forming at a crepe stand and decided to join in on the action. Though we waited quite a while for this one-man crepe operation, I've got to say it was one of the best crepes I had my whole time in France. I don't know what it was about it, if it just being the first brings back nostalgic memories or if it was genuinely crafted with magic, but I just recall us all agreeing that the crepe in Albi was top-tier.
We didn't do much the rest of the day, just loitering around trying to kill time until our return train was scheduled to arrive. It turns out there really wasn't a whole lot to do in Albi for tourists, and it being a Sunday when all businesses are closed didn't really help our case either. We wandered a park for a bit and even contemplated watching a movie just to kill time, until one of the guys said fuck it and suggested we try to catch the next train back to Toulouse rather than wait another few hours. This led to us running a solid mile down to the train station, arriving at the platform just in time for the next train's departure, and buying ours tickets for said train quite literally as we boarded. We later found out that because the train was so full of commuters at the end of the 5pm workday, and I mean packed in like cattle full, no one ever came around to check our tickets. Could've saved 8 euros but oh well.
For our first weekend trip of the semester, Albi was a neat little town to check out. I'm glad I hit the ground running with traveling right out of the gates, and especially with these guys, because it was the start of an extraordinary time abroad and the beginning of some really great friendships.