After a nice relaxing stay in Lagos it was time to start making the long trek towards Austria. Originally we had hoped to go down to Morocco for a few days once we where done in Portugal, but after looking into it we realized it was going to cost more in time and money to get down there than we had originally expected. So we decided to leave that trip for another time.
The 5 hour bus to Seville was easy enough. We where unable to find an Internet spot to book a hostel for that night so we decided to go back the the hostel we had stayed in the last time we where in Seville and luckily they had 2 beds available for us. The next day consisted of taking a high speed train from Seville to Barcelona with a stopover in Madrid. We where actually lucky to catch the train we did. (Buying (reserving in our case) train tickets in Spain takes much longer than any other country we had been in thus far. After taking a number you can sometimes wait for up to an hour to get to the counter. It was so bad in Valencia that we just left the station and got the reservation on the day we left.) That day we managed to just get our ticket with about 10 minutes to go through the metal detectors and board the train. From there it was smooth sailing at 300+ km/h across the Spanish countryside.
Upon coming up from the metro station in Barcelona we saw what we thought where protesters on the street right in front of our hostel. However, we managed to just make it into the hostel before the group of what turned out to be people jumping through fireworks and making a bunch of noise filled up the street. 
We booked two nights in Barcelona, so the next day was spent doing laundry and putting in some much needed internet time. That evening Scott went out to finally report his passport lost (only about 6 weeks and 4 countries later than when he lost it). As it turned out the subway he was on just happened to breakdown, making what should have been a 5 minute trip take over an hour. That night it was early to bed because the plan was to take the 8 am train with 3 connections to Lyon.
We booked two nights in Barcelona, so the next day was spent doing laundry and putting in some much needed internet time. That evening Scott went out to finally report his passport lost (only about 6 weeks and 4 countries later than when he lost it). As it turned out the subway he was on just happened to breakdown, making what should have been a 5 minute trip take over an hour. That night it was early to bed because the plan was to take the 8 am train with 3 connections to Lyon. The next mourning came and the alarm that we bought in the airport in Toronto managed to fail us for the first and arguably most important time. Of course the real hassle was that we woke up just 20 minutes after the alarm was supposed to wake us, making it not quite possible to catch the train we wanted. After once again waiting in the que at the train station we managed to get information on a train that would get us to Lyon just a few hours later and where assured we would not need any reservations for any legs we would be taking. So we got on the first train and got off at a small station on the Spanish border in France where we were told we could catch a train that would get us to our next connection point. Of course being the smart seasoned travelers we are, we decided to confirm with the ticket agent at this station that we could get on the train we needed to with out a reservation. Through her half french half english she informed us that the train we needed was full and we would have to talk to the conductor to see if we could get on. Not good news. So we put our heads together, got out our train schedule and figured out another connection that would get us to Lyon. We showed the agent what we came up with and she eventually found us an alternative and we booked the seats. So the train finally came and we managed to make in to Lyon problem free from then on. The hotel was easy to find and after realizing how nice the city appeared to be we booked another night there as well.
