This is Hopputtle, signing off....

Hey everyone,
It´s our last day together, i head home in the morning, and erin is off to the last leg of her trip. We did have one last adventure in which we learned that there are only direct trains to malaga once every two days, and the one that would have taken us a mere 7 hours in transfers was already sold out....so we took the bus, it was 8 euros and an hour and a half....it was our first, last and BEST BUS EVER. Anyway, we thought we'd leave you with a few random
thoughts and ruminations we had along the way. If you've done the
europe travel thing, then some memories for you, if not, some reasons
to visit...
First, the awards...
Best Big City: Barcelona
Best Little City: Carcasonne
Best Castle: Carcasonne
Slipperiest Streets: Lisbon
Funniest travel story: Chuck, "It's a Kennedy!" in reference to
handing out 50 cent pieces to unsuspecting beer vendors in barcelona
and trying to convince them of their value
Best Hotel: Hostal Suso, Santiago de Compostella
Best Saint to Hug: James
Best place to buy scarves/earrings: tie- Barcelona and Lisbon
Best winery tour- Patriarche Pere et Fils, Beaune, France
Best Port Tour- Cockburn Martinez
Best sandwich ever- the Hopputtle = heinz baked beans (room temp), any
type of salami, and any type of cheese smothered over your preferred
size of baguette

Now, the ruminations...
-Random mixes if music throughout europe is awesome (including the
café we are in right now playing You Gotta Be)
-Pigeons in all countries are vicious, and frequently diseased, with stumps
-Some names sound fantastic (Eriné Hop-pei), some names lack a little
something in the translation (Jebbie Toot-lei)
-being in southern France is like being in a Cezanne painting; being
in southern spain is like being in southern california
-sometimes wine is cheaper than water
-the french countryside is full of wild, white stallions waiting to be
tamed for someone's honeymoon
-no transfer time between trains is too short
-in spain you can buy any number of animals that illegal in most
countries, and some we can't even identify
-train quality is a crap shoot (as are bathrooms, hotel rooms, and dinner)
-Canadians are talky
-Europeans lack a certain knowledge of the concept of personal space
-Museums are so much more fun when they are free, or if they have
monkey paintings
-France has a lot of rules (ie: after 8, no eating, only drinking)
-If you see a bunch of hippies with instruments on the street, stick
around for a good show

Also, the last thing you see before the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse
will probably be a main with a partially shaved head with a woman who
has a mullet, on some form of public transportation, each smoking,
drinking a beer, eating a ham and cheese baguette, holding dogs...

And, as the summer months approach, you may be looking for a cool,
refreshing drink. May we recommend our summer drink of choice, dry,
white port with a splash of tonic and lemon on lots of ice (schwepps
tonic if you're using Sandeman port, sellouts)

I guess that is it, its been a really great trip, I don´t think i could have ended up with a better travel buddy, its hard to think of someone that could make the fun times more fun, and made the sucky times shorter and we generally ended up laughing about them anyway. Besides, without her, i´d have too much weighin me down, i´d never have brushed my hair, and i probablly would have just ended up laying in the shade telling passers by to go on without me.....I thank her for being the one who kept me fed, drank with me, and let me win at cards...twice

I´ll see you all soon...well some of you, but i´ll talk to you all soon. I hope you´ve enjoyed, we certainly have.