In Nantes we walked through the city and had lunch (a sandwich of French bread, tomato, lettuce, and cheese, chocolate pudding, and a clementine) in the park.  We strolled over to a cathedrale, that compared to most, was bright and cheerful inside.  The organ music echoed through the rays of light from the rose windows.  A man hastily cleaned the stone pillars with a rag and carelessly dragged a small broom accross the gargantuan floors.  A woman sat outside the doors with woeful eyes and long dark hair.  When we passed the castle of Nantes, still being restored since the last 5-7 years and having now been to Nantes four times, I have not yet seen the inside.  But outside there are several areas to play La Boule or Petanque, which inevitably a group of old men stood around gabbing, laughing and occasionally playing the game.  The next day we wandered over to the island park to play hide and seek in the bamboo and read about various sequoias.  We went to the beautiful flower garden park, although not much was blooming.  We watched the pigeons dance and the ducks quarrel and Brian shared his chocolate with me.  We wandered through the streets until we came home.  That night we prepared to leave via co-voiturage.  We took a tram to a large mall outside the city center and waited for our ride.  He arrived late and tended not to cover his mouth when he coughed in the small car heading to Bordeaux, so I breathed frequently through my gloved hand.

When we arrived in Bordeaux at 1 in the morning the man who was more in co-voiturage for the money than to help, dropped us off before we knew if the hostal was even open.  It wasnt.  But the door was slightly open and we slipped into the quiet, dark hostal, up the stairs and slept on the floor in the hallway.  In the morning, we got up when the owner made some noise and quickly exited the premises.  It was early so we went to a cafe and bought ourselves some pain au chocolat and chocolat chaud and sat in the warmth of the cafe playing soduko and reading the newspaper for 2 hours.  The rest of the day consisted mainly of finding and doing internet stuff, getting info from the train station and about getting a rental car the next day and finding a hostal to stay in for the night.  At the hostal we found by the train we ate dinner of a microwaved potato with cheese, avocado and tomato on it.  The next day we got up and ate breakfast of french bread and jelly with hot chocolate.  We got our car and took off for a tour of wine country.  We saw small sleepy villages and then found a winery.  The man who gave us a tour only spoke French so I translated what I could.  The cool underground cellar was damp and smelled earthy and like centuries old tradition.  We tasted red, rose and sweet wine and bought the latter two.  In the next town was a medeval village with cobble stone roads and walkways, crumbling stone walls and a bright sky.  When we returned to Bordeaux, we drank a bottle of wine and fell asleep, or maybe we fell in love.  We got train tickets to go to Barcelona that night and then walked to the bridge crossing the river, laughing and holding hands.  We walked through a people filled street to the park where we ate lunch and watched the swans preen and the men pigeons try to coerce the women with their lovely little dances.  I finished reading my book, A Very Long Engagement, at the train station.  We took an over night train to Barcelona and slept in a couchette in the softly swaying but still jostled cars.

We awoke in Barcelona and a man with flyers told us about a great little hotel by the center of the city.  It was as cheap or cheaper than the hostals we found.  So we went to the hotel and checked in to a tiny room with no windows and went to sleep for a long time.  When we woke for the second time that day went to La Rambles and cruised up and down the street of shops and entertainers.  Most entertainers are the kind that paint themselves like a statue and only move for money, others are musicians or dancers or magicians.  We watched a really great acrobatic dance group of guys who liked Micheal Jackson a lot.  We walked down the pier and sat on a bench as the sun set on our first day in Spain.  The next day we got up and got ourselves a better room with a door opening into an ally.  We then  started walking by the water.  We went to the history museum and they had a featured exhibit about witches in Catalunya  and the witch hunt that ensued.  We then rambled about aimlessly and then sat on a bench talking about what we were learning and how our path was starting to take on a clearer direction toward roots and a home.  And then a man on a bike almost ran into me and slightly fell on the bench.  Unbeknownst to me another man behind Brian tried to take his little back pack, but Brian put his hand on his moving bag and the two guys took off before I knew what was happening.  Brian seemed calm and later explained he felt he had won and didn´t need to raise alarm, due to several factors I didn´t think of, like if he had gone after the one guy trying to take the bag, the other guy was right by me, so all in all he still had his bag and we were both safe.  I, on the other hand, was so mad that they could be that conniving and mean, to ruin someones day or journey...I wanted to kick butt, in other words.  Brian said if police had been around, he would have pointed the two guys out to them, but there werent any.  It took me a bit to realize the two had worked together but...you live you learn.  The only valuable thing they would have gotten in that bag other than Brians sandwich was the memory cards to the camera.  We then went to the park and found a neat spot where there was a dance group playing music and doing coordinated dancing to the tribal chanting.  Right next to them in a large gazebo was a group of people with old Spanish music on the radio while they danced Spanish style.  We wandered around and then ate at the hotel.  Today we got up and took the metro to Parc Guell and spent most of the day walking about and people watching on that mountain, where there are escalators that lead to the top.  Now we rest and plan for the next leg of our journey. 

Back again to France, the journey shall commence.

Bon Soiree!