The 15:09 Train to Madrid (3:09pm)

If we were a member of Trip Advisor, here would be our entry.

Dear Trip Advisor,
Train Station rental car drop off in Montpellier, France SUCKS!
Leaving the lovely town of Aix-en-Provence in route to Montpellier to catch a train to Madrid, we had sufficient time for a stop in Les Baux, a medieval, cave filled town. We enjoyed an audio/visual artsy presentation of Picasso images projected in a cave and then walked around this town. At 13:00 we left for Montpellier, our Navigation system confirming arrival at 14:05. Here's what happens next....

14:07 - Top of gas tank, found Roz bathroom.
14:18 - Locate train station per GPS, looking for rental car drop off.
14:26 - Circle train station looking for rental car drop off, send Roz inside station for guidance.
14:32 - Roz returns and points in the opposite direction, no one confesses to speaking English.
14:41 - Circle train station again, there is no sign of the rental car return.
14:45 - Roz enters train station thru another door and looks for help, there is no one.
14:50 - Circle to front of train station, Glenn parks car on the sidewalk, after turning into the bus lane and is tempted to call Europcar to advise them where he left the car, keys under the mat and wants to tell them to come quick. Instead Roz tells Glenn to go inside the station and find his own directions. As Roz sits in the car while pedestrians walk around the car, she is now getting nervous.
14:57 - Glenn comes running towards the car and points in the opposite direction, turns the car around, mind you he is going the wrong way on the bus/tram rail tracks. Roz indicates you can't do that, and Glenn states "What the F____ it's a rental car" but wait there's a large gap/ditch in the road that would have sunk us. So he proceeds turn around and finds the tram with driver patiently staring at us. Rolling down the window, still on the tracks, a potential person to ask for help is long winded, in French, pointing to the rental car return. Roz indicates to move it, there's a tram on the on rail coming towards us!
15:07 -After making a few illegal turns, and running a red light, while on a bridge, down below we see the rental car return.
15:17 - Arrive at rental car return. Glenn advises the counter clerk that there are no signs pointing to this location and the clerk confirms that they are aware of it.
15:25 - Stand in ticket line at train station, need new plan. By the way, it's a holiday weekend in France and the ticket line is very long.

Here's what we wanted to post on Craigslist.....

"Available Friday, one night stay in very nice hotel in Madrid, paid for.......call Glenn and Roz in Barcelona at this pay phone number!"

23:17 - Arrive in Barcelona train station with no where to stay. Glenn points out the window
and indicates that the benches look comfortable and the station is clean.

SATURDAY MORNING......after having spent the night at a hotel across the street from the train station (yes that means we paid for two nice hotel rooms that previous night), we set out to cross the street to return to the train station for a 9:00 AM train to Madrid. As we were walking, Glenn hears a splat and looks around at his suitcase and notices what looks like bird turd. A guy says it was a bird, but from the looks of the amount, it looked like the whole flock dumped simutanenously, aiming at not only his suitcase, but backpack as well. This one guy came over with a tissue offering his assistance, and then another guy from a different direction getting in between us. Glenn suspiciously advised Roz to hold onto our bags and we high tailed it into the station. A massive clean up was in order. We think this was a diversionary tact to catch us off guard and was likely oatmeal or grits tossed onto our suitcase.

In our 7 weeks of travel, this was our most challenging 24 hours!