Oh Baxter, you know I don´t speak Spanish

Alright. So haven´t updated in a few days, mostly because these Spanish keyboards are doing my little head in. Keys are not where they´re supposed to be!

So where to begin. I guess at the train trip. Our train from Paris departed at 11:00pm, so we headed off to our station at about 9. On our way to the train, some odd little French boys called out ¨Sexy girls!!!!¨at us........mind you, Kim and I were carrying our 15 kilo backpacks, grotty train clothes, crocs, and our daypacks on our fronts. Never felt sexier, and it must have shown. It was the best laugh we´d had all day. And that´s saying something; we were hanging out with some ridiculously funny people in Paris.

Once we arrived at the station, we encountered what has been our major complaint with Europe. The endless supply of pervy men. Kim and I were thinking the other day, Europe is certianly not short of attractive women, so why is it that almost every old dude we walk past or sit opposite feels it necessary to stare, wink, lean out his window, and just be generally creepy?? It happened on the train too, for several hours. Mucho unpleasant. As was the smell. I want one train that doesn´t smell like urine. Too much to ask? Apparently.

Other than old geezers and slight pee smell, our train trip was lovely. The Spanish countryside is what you´d expect, very picturesque. There were a lot of rolling hills, and in fine Spanish form, the valleys were dotted with terracotta roof tiles of the little houses. At one point we were going through a valley with houses on the hillsides, and Kim woke up and asked, ¨Are we in China?¨, and it did indeed look like we had made a slight detour.

They played two movies on the train, both in Spanish, so Kim and I mostly slept and stared into space, absorbed in our iPod companions. I love my iPod. I don´t know about Kim, but I have been well trained for long trips - I have been through many a 12 or more hour drive with the fam - and so it was a great way to unwind and have some ´me´ time, as it were. The toilet was an interesting experience. Despite my cast-iron bladder holding strong through several hours and several bottles of water, eventually nature called, and I could no longer send it to message bank. After scrubbing the toilet itself for about 10 minutes using antibacterial wet-wipes (not that I´m a priss), I was brave enough to face it, and it was only mildly unpleasant. I mean, the cubicle smelled less like pee than the rest of the train, so it wasn´t that bad.

Oh, note for my music peeps. RHCP Stadium Arcadium, Augie March Moo, You Bloody Choir, Garden State Soundtrack - very good road trip music. Will find more bests and report.

Anyway, I´m hogging the computer, so I´ll scoot off, and write more about Kim and Lisa´s non-lingual adventures later......