With one train ride left to go, we ran into the first major glitch of the trip.

When we tried to book a seat reservation this morning to go from
Montauban to Paris we were told that the train was full "for our
tarrif" and that we would have to wait until midnight to go. And to
leave at all today we would have to pay 100 euros and wait a couple of
hours.

Obviously this would not do. Dan and I had already paid for a bike
tour this evening and I did not want to spend all day sitting around
at the station in Montauban. And of course it was raining. So, we just
got on the train and hoped for the best.

Luckily they expect this sort of thing in Europe, so when the
conductor came by and saw us sitting out in the hall she had $15
"non-seat" tickets available for us. So not only do I think they were
trying to screw us over at the train station, but it also turns out
that doing whatever the heck you want works out in Europe!