A Boggled Mind

The quantity and quality of food that I hqve eaten here over the last three days boggles the mind. I cannot even begin to describe it. Saturday morning Christian took me to the center of Lyon where our first stop was to visit, Monique, a friend of Christian's. She has a really lovely apartment right in the center of the city. She prepared a wonderful lunch for us --all specialties of Lyon and the region. I felt very special. Then Monique and Christian served as my guides to the city. Although it rained, we managed to see lots of great things. We walked to the old part of the city and then took the funicular up the hill for an incredible view of the entire city. We went into the Basilica of Notre Dame de Fourvière: The best part, for me, was the huge mosaic of the Camino de Santiago. It is a modern mosaic but it is pretty cool as it shows different stages of the walk and Christian and I could recognize several of the bulidngs represented in the work. We also visited the Roman theatre, the main square, and some other places. It was another great day.
Yesterday, Christian had organized a picinc but the weather was a bit cool so it was actually a big all day eating fest held at Joelle's place. It was a great opportunity to meet a lot of Christian's friends and family(probably about 20 people): I do not exaggerate when I say we arrived at about noon and left at about midnight--except for a one to two hour walk at around 5 p.m. it was pretty much 10 hours of eating extremely good food. Fortunately for me a few friends spoke some English so I didn't have to flounder too much.
Today is sort of a relaxing type day which is good. Tomorrow, I'm off to Portugal.

I've got to hand it to the French

These people have the life... Christian picked me up at the airport and we went to his friend, Joelle's place as it is close to the airport. She prepared an amazing dinner--lots of appetizers, a gratin of vegetables, some type of small bird cooked with mushrooms and figs. Then my very favorite thing about france-- thet cheese tray. Years ago while visiting my friend, Isabelle? at her parents houseu in France, people started noticing that I wasn't eating so much at dinner. It was merely a strategic ploy to save room for the forthcoming cheese tray. I had forgotten about it until Joelle produced the wonderful array of cheeses. Then I still manage to put away some flan. I had a lovely room with beautiful antique furniture belonging to joelle's mother. After chatting 'til nearly & a.m. I had a good night's sleep. Yesterday was amazing. Apart from cheese there is little that I love more than beautiful, charming villages--C. and I went to an incredibly beautiful medieval villlage--Perouges . Amazing! Then driving around the country side to a charming non-medieval village--vonnas-- "le village gourmand". We went to an old and famous restaurant for a really great meal. More countryside and then hiking in the nearby mountains for about an hour and a half. For dinner, C; prepqred duck in so,e sort of reqlly good cream sauce. It is quite possible that I will have to pay extra fare on the airplane tuesday morning for an extra seat as at this rate, I won't fit in mine. On top o fall of this, the weather was gorgeous. Althoug France is great, the French keyboard is not and writing this has been very tedious in a hunting and pecking sort of way. I'm not sure why anyone would ever leave this place. Hope all is well.

jamon y sol

Well, I´ve nothing exciting to report but my flight was great. I snagged a center row of 4 seats so was able to stretch out for the entirety of the flight and probably got more sleep than I¨ve ever gotten on an airplane (probably still less than normal people). I have a few hours before my flight to Lyon, France so I´m spending a few hours in Madrid. It´s a gorgeous, sunny day--probably about 75 degrees. Catherine, as you predicted, I made a beeline for the Museo de Jamon and have had one sandwich and bought one to take back to the airport. I had dreaded this day of transit figuring I¨d feel exhausted but actually I feel pretty great. Well, I don´t want to squander my day at the dank, basement internet center so I will say Hasta Luego.

Camino Portugues 2009

Last year while walking the long route to Santiago, some of us started talking about walking another route the following year. We figured that due to various circumstances we would not all have the luxury of a month this year...nor would we all be able to work out the same vacation days. We toyed with the the idea of walking in Portugal. And so it has come to pass (or sort of ) I have managed to coordinate with the above four individuals (pictured left to right: Christian, Catherine, Carlos, Ina) to meet up this spring. As the centuries old pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela had people walking from all parts of Europe, there are several routes. Last year's, the so called, French Way, is the most popular and, I think, features the strongest infrastructure of accomodations,etc. Due to a shorter amount of time, we will walk the latter part of the Portuguese route--starting in Oporto and ending, once again in Santiago. It is only about 150 mile walk and should take just over a week. I leave tonight to fly to Madrid and will arrive tomorrow morning and will spend the day there. That evening I will get another flight to Lyon, France where I will visit Christian for a few days. Sadly, won't be able to join us so I will visit him for a few days first. He and his friend, Joelle, have planned a number of activities for me while I am there. Then I fly to Porto, Portugal where I will spend a couple of days on my own. When I lived in Spain, I lived very close to the Portuguese border and made frequent visits there. I love Portugal and am so happy to be returning as I haven't been for years. I think the first couple of days I will travel a bit outside of Porto to the reportedly charming town of Guimaraes. Then back to Porto where Catherine will meet up with me. Inspite of having to put up with me on last year's trip, put up with me at work, and be in the midst of planning her wedding, she has decided to join us for about 10 days. I couldn't be happier. Our plan as of now is to go to Lisbon for a couple of days to visit Carlos and his family who live there. Carlos is an engineer and works a lot. He won't be able to get the days off to walk with us but might try to meet us to walk one weekend. We really look forward to seeing him. Then, Catherine and I will go back to Porto and meet up with young Ina who will be arriving from Germany. The following day we will set out on the walk to Santiago. Catherine will stay with us and walk a couple of days and then fly home and Ina and I will continue onwards to Santiago. It should be fun to meet up with the old crowd and I suspect we'll meet others as well. I'm all packed...if I could just shake the stuffy head, allergies, headache, etc. I'd be set.

"Everyone says this Camino is so hard but really all we do is sit around in cafés all day eating."

The above is probably my favorite quote of the trip. Ina said it once we had arrived in Santiago. It is actually pretty true. The walking really wasn´t hard. It really seems that we were hanging out in cafés and restaurants eating more than we were walking.
On Sunday morning, Catherine, Ina, Sang Kyoung, Nicole, and I rented a "car" to drive to Finisterre. I say "car" as it was a cute little Fiat Dobló which Catherine described as looking like a small Special ed. bus. Catherine is the only one who had the foresight to bring a driver´s license and she did a fabulous job driving. We made a day of it. Finisterre is maybe 60 miles beyond Santiago on the coast. We drove along the coast and stopped at beautiful fishing villages. The weather was gorgeous and the scenery was amazing. We went to Finisterre which is a rocky little peninsula jutting out into the Atlantic. We each seemed to separate to find our own rock to sit on. Although I thought I would feel sad upon arriving in Santiago, I actually felt pretty sad in Finisterre as it really seemd like the end of the trip. Ina had packed a picnic for us and we all ate it and continued to some other seaside towns. We drove a more direct route back to Santiago and passed the Camino several times (some people continue on the Camino to Finisterre where they burn their hiking clothes on the rocks). Christian had given us a teary goodbye early that morning as he had set off for Finisterre as did Luke. So, we stopped at the albergue about 26 km. from Santiago and I went in and found Christian and Luke and brought them to the bar where the rest of the girls were waiting. They were so happy to see us. They said that it was sad to arrive at this albergue as all of the others there were strangers. I know how they felt...it was like when I was behind my crowd of friends and they were in the village waiting for me. I think they felt very happy to see us. We went back to Santiago and had dinner with Toby. Sang Kyoung and Nicole had decided to go back to Santiago too instead of staying in Finisterre. Yesterday morning, Nicole, Sang Kyoung and Ina accompanied Catherine and me to the airport to see us off. It was so nice of them and great to have their company at the airport.
Catherine and I did a tapas and wine run last night her in Madrid, and were out very late. We are getting ready to go to the airport where we will announce to any Iberia airline employee in sight that we have just completed the Camino de Santiago..we´re hoping it will get us some sort of free upgrade to seats with leg room--we´re not holding our breath though.
We´ll see you tomorrow!

Old Home Week

We finally arrived in Santiago. The last few days were very warm and sunny--beautiful but probably near 80 degrees so a little warm for the walk. The last time I wrote we were at the horribly crowded albergue. It was smelly and none of us had sleep so we left early in the morning when it was still dark. The next night we (Raul, Ina, Jennifer, Carlos, Catherine, Nicole) stayed at a more upscale private albergue but it was worth the price. We had a great night´s sleep and then left very early to make it to Santiago for the noon pilgrim´s mass. We walked the first two hours in the dark. I arrived in Santiago with Ina, Catherine, and Carlos. It was especially nice to be there with Ina as I had started out with her at the beginning. After the mass, we went to the pilgrim office to register and get our certificates. While there, Christian got wind that we had arrived and met us there. It was a big surprise as we were sure that he would have been on his way to Finisterre. He had arrived a couple of days before but waited for us to arrive. Then we all went to a great restaurant for lunch. Carlos announced that he would be leaving in an hour as his parents would be picking him up. This came from out of the blue and we were disappointed that he would be leaving so soon. Over the last day day or two it has been like old home week. Christian took us to find Dutch Kim and it was great to see her. She was leaving that night. Since then we have seen just about everyone. Toby arrived today. We have also seen the three Spanish men that we traveled with over the last few days, Luke, Nicole, German car driver, Felix, Hildegard, just a whole bunch of people. The only people left that I´d like to see are the Norwegians. We´ve had e-mail from Juan--he had to go back to Madrid a couple of weeks ago due to injury. Today was very relaxing--lots of hanging out at cafés, milling around, running errands, etc. The bus to Finisterre seems to be something of a scam so we are looking into renting a car and may drive there tomorrow. I frankly wouldn´t mind another day of lounging. We´ll see. A wee bit sad tonight as Christian, Jennifer, and Nicole leave tomorrow. I guess I´ll see them next year on the alleged Portugal walk.

Inching our way to Santiago

Obviously I´ve never run a marathon, but if I had, I would think that during the duration of the race I would be longing to get to the finish line. Not so here. Ever since I reached the halfway point, and even before that, I have had no desire to arrive in Santiago as I´m just having too much fun. This trip has been even better than I had anticipated. I love the people, the landscapes, the villages, the food, even the snow and rain. It reminds me of Christmas when I was little. I loved Christmas so much and the whole month of December was so exciting. Baking Christmas cookies; getting packages in the mail; making snowball candles; Christmas Caroling; parties at school; the advent calendar; getting Christmas cards; Christmas shopping: making Christmas ornaments--I loved it all. And Christmas Eve and Christmas morning were amazing and then in the afternoon we would go to our neighbors´houses to see what presents they received....and then, Christmas afternoon or evening I would feel just so sad that it was all over. For the last week or so, this is how I think that I will feel upon arriving in Santiago. Everyone else seems eager to get there except for me...and Sang Kyoung --she feels the same as I do.
Anyway, we are continuing to have a good time. I believe I last wrote from Sarria and from there we walked to Gonzar--I think about 18 miles. "We" is now Catherine, Ina, Sang Kyoung, me and new friend, Carlos. Carlos is young and from Portugal and speaks English very well and is incredibly witty. We are always laughing with him. The best part about Gonzar was that it was just the 5 of us at the albergue. We had a fun time. It is so much nicer when there is a small group. Today we walked another 18 or 19 miles from Gonzar to Melide. The albergue here is another story. As we get closer to Santiago, there are lots more people joining in. We call them the "newcomers". Today at the albergue there are probably over a hundred people. It´s not so fun. Both of the last two days featured beautiful weather and again, beautiful scenery. It has been just great. We have seen a lot of cows, sheep, and chickens. Today, I saw a newborn calf (or as Ina called it, "a fresh new cow") drinking its mother´s milk for the first time. We also saw some adorable, tiny lambs bleating at us. We´ve seen people driving cows down the road. As you can guess, it is pretty rural here. Things are really great.
We are hoping when we get to Santiago we can meet up with some of our other friends who are either ahead of us or behind us.