Today we are in transit - taking the train from Barcelona to Figueres, from Figueres to Montpellier, then from Montpellier to Nice! It's about a 9 hour journey all up, but it's beautiful riding on the train, watching the amazing Spanish & French countryside pass us by. I must say I'm rather relieved to be heading back to France where my linguistic skills are a little more satisfactory…having only spent a week in Spain there really wasn't much time to grasp the language, & it does make things a little trickier! Interestingly enough, despite the over-generalised stereotype that the French can be rather rude & unwelcoming when it comes to foreigners (particularly those who don't speak their language) I found that by and large, the service & general reception we received from the locals in Barcelona was much worse. It may just be a cultural barrier, but we found it difficult everywhere we went to get seated in a restaurant, to place an order, really to receive any service at all! By the time we left we were really starting suspect that the Spanish people didn't like us very much…but ah well! Que sera, sera! On we go to Nice :)

When we arrived in Montpellier, we discovered that the Spanish guy who had refused to reserve me seats on the second two legs of our journey (because those journeys were in France, and he ASSURED me that there would be PLENTY of seats!) would cause us to spend an extra 2 hours at the train station & a ride on a direct train to Nice from Montpellier. The very nice Frenchman at the ticket booth explained they have this problem a lot with trains coming in from Spain…I told him that they told me they weren't able to make booking for French trains. "Aaaah" he replied (clearly he's heard this before) "Can't…or won't". Seems they have this kind of problem a lot! Fortunately he was very helpful & managed to find us the cheapest option to get to Nice, AND helped me book my trains to Italy the following Sunday - yes, even though they were in Italy, not France!

The other unfortunate thing was, that after making the rather foolish decision to continue eating a burger I was quite sure wasn't properly cooked the day before, I cam down with a rather nasty bout of food poisoning. Food poisoning is not fun at the best of times…food poisoning on 4 different train rides in one day - ugh! Still, Kelly & I had to laugh at the situation, given we had both eyed the burger off suspiciously & joked about how we'd probably get food poisoning from it…haha that'll teach me!

In any case we eventually made it to Nice in one piece & Kelly was kind enough to go out & get me some food & drugs from the pharmacy. She is a truly wonderful friend, & it makes all the difference when you're travelling & don't feel so well so have someone like that by your side :)