We ended up staying in Barcelona an extra day due to future hosts schedules.  But it was a beautiful day, sunny, sunny, sunny.  We went for a nice long walk to the Arc de Triomf and sat on a stone bench eating clemintines and squinting into the sun.  We then went to the park and sat in the grass watching several young people to our left sing and play the guitar.  On our right a young guy juggled while some girls watched, giggled, and then tried to clumsily toss the balls in the air.  We went to the beach and sat in the sand watching the tiny waves wash up onto the shore.  I combed the beach for smooth worry stones and pretty shells.  When we went back to the hostel we ate dinner and had a good conversation with a guy from England whose glasses continually fell from his hands. 

The next day we took a train to Girona, Spain and walked with our bags through a big park with enormous trees.  At the end of the park was the river where we stopped, sat on the wall and Brian drew pictures and I listened to my music and dreamed.  A very old couple, the man leaning on a cane and the woman leaning on him, very slowly, walked the length of the park.  We then went to the Correus to meet our new host David.  He was all smiles as he rounded the corner and spotted us.  He took us on a very interesting night tour of the castle.  We walked along the top of the wall that ran the length of the inner city.  We sat in one of the towers and looked at the city lights and the stars, talking.  He then took us to the super market where we got cheese and wine and salad.  David turned out to be an amazing cook with very fine taste.  When we reached his house in the mountains about 15 minutes from the city, we found his house to be very lovely.  We had a wonderful dinner to the tune of various music and ended the evening with a slide show of pictures David took on his trips to other countries.  Hes a wonderful photographer and very creative.  The next day we ate breakfast on the veranda, sunshine bouncing off the mountains and into our upturned faces.  We then took a tour of the mountains, saw some really quaint villages and bought some very good bread and chocolate.  He then took us to town where B and I ate lunch and went to the internet cafe.  We received some disturbing news, so we abruptly and prematurely left Girona.  But we found out later it was not as urgent as we thought and soon continued our journey back up to France.

We hastily contacted some people we met in Caen that told us they lived in Toulouse and to let them know when we were in town and they would take us in for a bit.  So our next stop over was in Toulouse.  Our hosts, Anne and Michel, are very worldly and have an amazing store of energy.  They also are wonderful cooks.  They took us to Albi, a small town where Henri de Toulouse Loutrec was born.  There is a ginormous cathedrale there, the colors preserved and bright with light.  We also visited the Toulouse Lautrec museum, where I was yelled at for taking pictures.  We had lunch in a bar, hot chocolate, cheese and bread.  At home again we had a stirfry and ate with chopsticks and drank lots of wine.  B and I did our laundry and the next morning, B went with Michel to have lunch with Michels father and see his "chateau."  I walked the city, seeing the market full of people, went to several cathedrales and then walked along the river, where I finally sat down to have lunch.  Dinner tonight was very interesting, Anne had two visitors who were Chinese.  The conversation was translated from French to English, English to French and French to Chinese.  It was kind of craziness, but fun.

Bon Nuit et Bon Chance!