Heading out...

The next morning another day in France dawned clear and bright!!  Everyone was tired, but happy, and we were all getting ready to head off on our next adventures--Lauren back to York, Sorcha to Marseilles, Debi and Nicolas to Ireland, Stacy to Paris/London, and Ben and I to Lourdes, then Spain.  We packed our things and soaked up the sunshine as gradually everyone began to make their way down to the reception hall to enjoy coffee and croissants.

Apparently during the night Debi's cousin had managed to injure his shoulder--what better place to injure yourself than where there are five eager young med students more than happy to examine you--especially when said med students are beautiful women, and you're a handsome young man?!  So in a particularly hilarious turn of events, Debi's Cousin Sam was shirtless and surrounded by very interested girls when his girlfriend, Amber, made it down to the reception hall...and immediately burst out laughing!!  :)  It was a good start to the day.

After an AMAZING paella lunch (my first ever!  Thanks, Debi!  It was DELICIOUS), we packed up the car, said our goodbyes, and headed out.  Ben decided to have a go at driving through the French countryside, and Nicolas's friends were kind enough to lead us back to Nicolas's house in Orange to drop the car off.  Unfortunately none of us had thought ahead to get directions from the house to the train station, so with a quick prayer and a bit of providence, we dropped off the car, grabbed our bags, and headed in the direction we hoped would get us there.  After a few wrong turns (but mostly right ones!), a couple times asking for directions (thank goodness for Sorcha and her French-language skills!), and a tiny bit of back-tracking, we made it to the train station.  

We got Sorcha and Stacy sorted and tickets purchased to head to their respective destinations, and then Ben and I went to the window.  At first the lady told us it was too late, we couldn't go to Lourdes (which was quite disappointing, as we had reservations there for that night), then she changed her mind and told us we could get there but we'd have to change trains a few times and we'd get there around 1:45 AM.  Little did we know we'd have to change trains at nearly every stop!!  Nevertheless, getting to the place we had a hotel reservation was the plan, so we stuck to it.  

Because we are huge nerds, we missed our first train (oops!), but realized the second train would work just as well, so it wasn't a big deal.  So after sending Stacy and Sorcha off, we finally got our train and began our next adventure...