New Blessings Every Morning

      It is interesting to be referring to our current situation as a blessing. We are laying on a slate floor in a small train station in Montpelier, France.  You are probably thinking, "BLESSINGS! They must have had too much of the wine in France!" It just got a little wackier. Now they are cleaning the floors.
     Here is the back story:  While in Barcelona, we found there was a night train to Milan. Since we are on a budget, these are great options, because you travel and you don't have to get a hotel.  After standing in line for an hour at the station, we learned that train only runs on select days.  Still wondering about the blessings part of this blog?
     We ended up getting tickets to Montpelier and were hoping to make it onto one more train in the Eastern direction.  This also gave us one more chance to see some sights we hadn't gotten in yet since the train did not leave until four.  The sights were great: Parc Gruel designed by Gaudi. Nature and architecture blended in a masterful way.  We got a little turned around and ended up rushing and worrying back to the station to find our ride was delayed,  Just a bit though.
     Our train was going as planned, stopping and going, letting people off and on until one stop.  We didn't go.  A translation of a loudspeaker message told us we had a two hour delay due to excruciating circumstances.
     After exploring the train station, a five minute task revealing only a gross bathroom and a ticket counter, we decided to try the cafe car on the train.  We have found good food for cheap on this trip so far, as well as a few bad expensive meals, and we decided this prepackaged food wasn't worth the cost.  In the way back to our car was the first clear blessing you have all been waiting for. A free meal provided by the train company.  Now it was pre packaged as well, but free is free.
     This meal led us into conversations with some youngish people from England who had never had applesauce.  We convinced them that it was not baby food, and that started many questions and answers about each other's culture.  This was a treat, because we got to learn a little bit about England without traveling there.  On a side note, we would love to travel there someday, but with the Olympics there shortly, it would be too hectic for this trip.
     The next part of our journey went quickly due to fun conversations, and we arrived at our destination just as the clock showed four zeros.
    There was one huge problem: We didn't have anywhere to stay.  Here come some blessings.  A man on the train promised some other people that since we missed our next train there would be a hotel nearby that would be comped.  This obviously did not happen, but by them arguing the point, the people who worked there changed their policy from locking the train station after kicking everyone out to locking the station with only travelers inside.  We are now safe which is huge deal.  A policeman with a big German shepherd keeps walking by to make sure we are on our best behavior.  We are also under a roof for free.  I guess the saying "you get what you pay for" is true.  We get a slate floor.  The thing that saying doesn't account for is that it is safe, it's clean, and the janitor driving a floor cleaner around making the perfect white noise to put us to sleep for the night.  Or for the morning I guess.  The clock now says two and we leave at 5:40.  The neat thing in all of this is that we are still being blessed.  As always, these posts are typed on a cell phone and this one is especially early in the morning, so please excuse any misspelled words or bad punctuation as just typos.
  Aaron