We left Monaco mid-day and began our rush back to Madrid. We only had until 9am the next morning to go 1,200km. The previous days had already left us exhausted. First rushing from Budapest through the alps. Then going down to Cinque Terre for a quick visit. Finally over to Monaco. All in just a few days, and we only slept in the car.
It was clear to us that we needed to take a less desirable route through France - with toll roads. We detest toll roads, but considering the other option in Southern France is to drive tiny country roads, we didn't have much option. We had too little time.
We made pretty good time, but we knew it was going to be a long road. On the Spanish border we picked up a hitchhiker from the Baltic Republics. She was going to Barcelona, and since we had to go down that way to catch another road towards Madrid we decided to take her along. We lost a little time doing this, because we had to go further into Barcelona than we would have liked so that we could get her to a metro station. We got lucky that we found one pretty far out from the center, but it still would have been faster if we had not taken her. These are the small prices you pay for meeting nice people and spreading generosity.
By the time we were an hour or so out of Barcelona, I was getting very tired. We decided to take a small nap, but the 3/4 of an hour we allotted ourselves was nothing. The next few hours were torture, and really pretty idiotic. I was beyond exhausted when we arrived at Madrid during the morning commute. With just a couple hours to spare, we made it back for Javier's final visa interview.
We could finally go back to the U.S.
