Today's Train of thought

We didn't really do anything today but take a train from 7am to 12:30 going from Lyon to Barcelona.  We settled into our apartment - this time it's a room in an apartment with a lady who owns it.  Then we had lunch and went grocery shopping.  The kids were too tired to do much else so we'll have to see all of Barcelona tomorrow.  Colin can't seem to sleep on the trains and Duncan goes to bed so late (last night he was still awake at 2am even though he knew I was getting him up at 6am and I'm just exhausted from all the walking -- we really needed a relaxing afternoon!  Duncan fell asleep around 5pm and told us to wake him at 10pm.

I have to say, I've really been pleased with airbnb.  We haven't had any issues with meeting up to "check in" and get the keys.  And every place is so different it's fun and interesting and makes days like today when we don't really do anything, still immerse since we are in a regular neighborhood and go to the local market and cook (or atleast see) local food.  The people have all been very nice.  The woman we are at here only speaks Spanish so it's interesting for us to communicate.  Some of the places have been apartments that are only used for airbnb, some have been lived in, and they range from newly redone to very old but all have been clean.

There have only been two so far that I had some minor issues with.  The first was my fault for not reading all the description - in Rome I knew we had 1 of 3 bedrooms in an apartment and others would be staying in those other rooms.  What I didn't realize is that there was no other rooms - like a living room or family room - just a kitchen and 1 bathroom.  So I felt rather shut into our little room AND the other people staying there all chose to take really LOOOOONNNNNNGGGG showers at 10 or 11pm...so just when you need to use the bathroom before you go to sleep...you have to wait and wait and wait.

The other place I had issues with was in Venice.  For one thing, the picture implied you could see the water from the apartment, but you couldn't.  For another, it was one of the few places that said it had AC and we really NEEDED AC there but what it had was a very weak fan in Duncan's room, an OK fan in my room if it was right next to the bed and a terrible portable AC unit which blew cool air if you were directly in front of it (where Colin slept on the sofa) but generated so much heat from the engine that it canceled out any cooling effect overall.