Well, I would love to look back on this entry and fondly reminisce about the myriad of fun activities we did this day.... but that would be a lie... unless by "fun" you mean traveling from 9:00am-5:00pm through MANY towns (mostly super cute) and MANY MANY toll roads. And let me just stop a moment to "reminisce" about the OUTRAGEOUS toll costs that seem to have no pattern or logic whatsoever! In the course of our first FOUR hour drive we had three toll roads that ranged in cost from $3.50 to more than $20.00! And it does NOT take credit cards! Who carries that much cash? Well, tourists, but if I actually lived here, I would be in deep trouble!
After Toby mistakenly thought the SMALL French roads were personal autobahn courses and literally took 45 minutes off our travel time (and I removed my fingernails from the arm rest), we arrived at the unfortunately named town of Perpignan at the French/Spain border. We had a few tense moments of "National Lampoon's European Vacation", and managed to get to the rental car place on our third try around the block. The Swagger Wagon Peugeot was safely delivered to its dreary little cave-like garage and the boys (for some inane reason) really wanted to have a competition to see who could fill up a water bottle with the most "personal lemonade". They then proceeded to marvel at their peeing prowess until I told them to get rid of it! (They considered leaving it and perhaps someone would think it was a real drink! WHO DOES THAT KIND OF THING??? Oh. My kids. Of course.)
The train from Pig to Barcelona (which was still high-speed AND first class BTW) had NO wifi (insert gasp of outrage here x 3 kids) so the boys had to spend the ENTIRE HOUR on the train... no, NOT looking out the window OR talking to their family... they had to play games OFF-LINE! Oh! The horror of it all! I am surprised that CPS -Barcelona was not called on me!
All ended well as we were now transitioning to what my kids call "a Nana trip" where everything is totally decadent, compliments of Nana. Bailey was moderately pleased that we were greeted by a driver with our name (well, MY name actually) on a card and I suspect he had limo dreams until we got to, yes! Another mini van! It was a smooth trip to the coolest apartment we have stayed in yet (again, I refer to this next part being a "Nana Trip"). My brother Matt, his wife Caroll, two kids Logan and Jordan, and my mom (Nana) were already waiting for us. As we entered, I was informed by my brother that he felt that we would be happiest sleeping is what he called "The Human Sacrifice Room". I think that it must have been some sort of personal temple or sanctuary or something long ago. It even has the little dish carved from the stone wall that you would typically see holy water in as you enter a church. It is a bit over the top but super unique!
We finished off the evening on the back veranda trying to keep the rest of our family awake to help them with the jet lag from arriving earlier that day, and actually getting to bed ourselves before 11:00pm for once. Tomorrow we have our tour with TWENTY-TWO people! All of us know each other from home so it should be a great time!
No comments:
Post a Comment