sept. 22.  2012

saturday-day 13

jarom goes home tomorrow-sunday-so we wanted to see something in this area together before he heads home, and i’m on my own…like by myself, in a foreign country, with four kids, knowing no french, and still having to drive a stick shift.  like a saying i love says, “if your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough.”  ok, i’m scared.  it’s so much more comforting knowing you have another adult to help make decisions with and figure things out.  we’ll see how things go!

we made our way to carcassone.  there is a medieval castle there, actually the oldest and largest in all of europe.  52 towers, and absolutely beautiful.  we paid for a little train ride around the castle, listening to our headset about the history of the castle.  this was interesting…the castle was surrounded and the people on the outside were guarding so that no food or water could come in or out, and the people would starve inside.  the people inside decided to give their last pig all the food they had left in the village, which wasn’t much, and then dropped the pig over the castle.  when the outsiders saw all the food that fell out of the pig, they thought the people inside were still very well fed, if the pig had that much food inside of it.  brilliant!  that’s where the carcass in the name comes from.

we found lots of lovely, lovely shops inside.  these were the best shops we’ve seen in our journey, and they were inside this amazing castle.   not to mention the darn cookie or biscuit shop we found, and spent 32 euro’s on for a bin of cookies, that nobody ended up really loving, but of course, i still snack on them.  darn those purchases!

we headed back, the hour drive, filled up the car, which is freaking ridiculous.  our little mini van cost 40 euro to fill up half a tank.  ouch!  it’s as expensive as our yukon xl back home.

made yummy spaghetti for dinner with salad, watched the goonies together as a family…i love that movie, and it’s so fun watching it with our kids, it’s a classic for jarom and i.  we loved just sitting together, no technology invading our time, quiet, chatting with the kids, and laughing.  it was brilliant.  how can i incorporate this back home?  always stuff going on, i just want it all to be less, and slower.  a great end to a very fun and adventurous day.