so the train ride from montpellier to carcassonne was hell. two hours of sleep really didn't cut it. so i fell asleep on the train there, easy peasy. BUT, during the ride, somewhere between narbonne and carcassonne a train had electrical issues up ahead of us, so needless to stay we had to stop. which was fine and dandy because i was asleep. and then they decided to turn off the air conditioning to save energy. still could've been fine... thing is, there are no openable windows on fast trains any more, so no air conditioning = hot box. and we were stuck for an hour. alas, we survived, slightly more smelly than we originally started out.
so we make it to carcassonne, and we had already talked to the woman in charge of our hostel (jan) and she said she could give us a ride out to the hostel (Sidsmums) since it was about 10km (6 or so miles) outside the city-proper. we killed some time looking like quintessential 'backpackers' sitting outside the train station surrounded by our loads of luggage. brillant photo i tell you if any one had taken one. two kids, 8 bags. real classy. in any case, we get picked up by jan who is this super cute british lady. started the hostel with her son (sid... hence sid's mum's aka sid's mom's) anywho, she picks us up, and we head out of town to the hostel which is nestled in this really small town of about 200 people or so named preixan.
the hostel turns out to be this little haven of english speakers in small town france where it feels like a second home. jan is the mom away from mom, and there's even a pet dog (georges - pronounced with a french accent) and a pet cat (jim, jimbob, jimbo, or anything in the near vicinity). so pretty much it turned out to be this perfect little place that michael and i never left. we planned on spending a bunch of time in carcassonne and wound up only spending maybe half a day there, the rest of the time we spent either at sidsmums or in the near vicinity. it was absolutely a vacation and such a great place that i cannot wait to go back. (more to come in detail, but the computer is dying... as always)
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