Today we left Barcelona for Carcassonne. Took metro to Barceloneta stop. There were no signs for the Franca train station, but we were able to eventually find it. It was also raining lightly to make things more interesting. Brian wrote a song about the rain. He calls it, “Don’t cry for my Barcelona” + Once we were at our train platform, Brian set off to find some food for breakfast. He first searched within the security zone, but there was only a newspaper store. So he left the security zone to the front of the train station. Eventually he found a restaurant, but it was only serving overpriced coffee, wine, and beer. Determined to find some food he went outside and surveyed the land. Nothing. He recalled that they had passed a bread store on their way to the train station so he ran through the rain to buy two chocolate croissants and a Napoleonic cream croissant. The store didn’t sell drinks though, but he was confident that the train station would at least have a vending machine. he returned the food to Amy waiting by the train, and then gathered their coins to go find a vending machine. He found several next to the restaurant with no food. Yet none of them worked. We were not meant to drink anything that morning I suppose. + The train was super slow. At times it felt like it was crawling. In fact one time Brian once looked outside and saw a man standing right by the tracks and the train slowly passed him. At Narbonne we were, supposed to catch a train to Carcassonne. However that train ended up being just a bus. We along with an elderly British couple were very confused as to where this bus was picking us up. The French information girl just kept waving her hand very vaguely. We did catch it though, and promptly passed out until we reached the Carcassonne station. + Upon arrival we discovered, with the help of a nice train info lady, that our hotel was far far away, in the middle of the boonies. She told us it was in the direction of the prison… so if we can’t find our hotel we could stay there for free (we just needed to commit a crime first!) We also discovered after talking to another Tourist information lady that it was about a 20 minute walk and that the next bus would not come for another hour. So we set off, each with our huge backpacks and our smaller backpacks. In the rain…around 40-50 minutes later we collapsed in our hotel which was thankfully clean. note: Brian was a nice friend and helped Amy carry her smaller backpack. Imagine Amy with her main backpack and her green umbrella and then Brian with his huge backpack and two smaller backpacks in front and no umbrella. + The reason we came to here was because Amy really wanted to see their walled city castle. So with a brief rest, (time enough for Brian to collapse on the bed) We were back outside walking up to this castle. + The castle is pretty impressive, and is much like what you would imagine one to be. + We arrived around 5:00 so we couldn’t take the chateau tour, but we the cathedral was still open so we went in there. + Then we wandered around the outer wall. Amy liked stepping on the old stones and connecting with history (dork) and Brian liked romping around like the boy in the video game ICO (nerd). +