planes, trains, and automobiles

So now to finish our harrowing tale... We stopped at a lovely boulangerie on our way to the train station:

Seriously, the croissants were amazing!  And we also grabbed some chicken salad and pastries for our long journey (spoiler alert: they were also tres magnifique!)  There was a huge crowd at the train station and a bit of a wait, but eventually we were settled in for the day.  And what a day!  The French countryside is unlike any other place in the world.  We spent the entire afternoon pointing out craggy peaks, fairy tale-like villages, lonely farmhouses, majestic castles, picturesque bridges, and winding streams.  We were ready right then and there to buy some land, attend the local church, and make some new friends, haha!  And then Spain!  Girona is gorgeous!  We hadn't really looked at living there because they speak Catalan and it isn't quite as warm, but it sure is pretty.  Then to the Barcelona airport.  It took a while to get our rental car and then Matthew didn't have his drivers license so they told us that he couldn't drive... oh, about one million times!  Even as we were walking way, the man yelled out, "Oh!  One more thing!  Only Mary should be driving that car!"  We didn't have a GPS, but I thought we could just follow the signs south.  Hahahahahha, oh my.  So naive.  Yes, we found a road south, but it wasn't the main one by any stretch of the imagination and we crawled through a mountain pass on a windy two lane road.  After a few hours we found the freeway, traversed the gustiest peaks -- there were warning signs every few feet so it must always be like that.  Eventually I pulled over because our little car was having such a hard time and we could barely walk across the parking lot.  We ate some tortilla espanol for late dinner and finally pulled onto our sleepy street around 3:00 AM on Thursday morning...  Only three days and I don't even want to say how much money later.  It was so nice to peek in on the sleeping children and I was never so happy as that night (morning) to climb into our hard and lumpy bed.  Around 7:00 AM Archie crept in, "Mom, is that really you???"