July 1 Tuesday - Santiago to Madrid A Tale of Two Countries

July 1 Tuesday - Santiago to Madrid

A Tale of Two Countries

The tears mixed with the soft rain as I walked through Alameda Park on my way to the Pilgrim's Office for my final dinner with my housemates.  This morning waiting on the platform for my train to Madrid my eyes started to fill again. I have two homes and love two countries. I never understood how a person could love two people romantically, but I think I understand now. Every time I leave Spain, I mourn the leaving and wonder if I will ever see her again. 

I'm excited to be going back to my home in California, the love of my life and best friend, my children and grandchildren, my friends human, and my sea creature friends. But to go there, I have to leave here. Right now it seems like it is getting more and more difficult to leave, each time I'm here. 

For those who know me well, you know that tears are a rare occurrence for me. I know people who cry at the drop of a hat. It has always mystified me. Perhaps I have just been blessed with a life with little to cry about. I do know that leaving Spain is becoming evermore a heartbreaking experience.

June 25 Wednesday - Santiago de Compostela Summer In Galicia,Transitions

June 25 Wednesday - Santiago de Compostela

Summer In Galicia, Transitions

Summer in Galicia is like winter at home. The first few days I was here it was warm, not hot, but warm. The highs were probably in the mid-seventies. Then it started raining and there were thunderstorms. The temperatures are in the mid to high sixties, with moisture in the air, and occasional showers. That's winter at home. But it isn't winter, it is summer. And my mind has begun it's normal migration from where I am to where I am going. For about two weeks before I leave for Spain, my mind is half at home, but turning toward Spain. And about two weeks before it is time to return home, the process reverses and my thoughts start turning increasingly to home. I started becoming aware of this phenomenon about five or six years ago. 

I'm thinking of warm summer nights spent watching the Dodgers, friends, family, walks on the beaches, and soft summer breezes. I have enjoyed my time here, as Zi always do. I have enjoyed the food here, as I always do. And I have enjoyed the people here, as I always do. If for some reason I found myself living in Spain, I am sure I would be happy here. I would learn to love  fútbol, as I love baseball. I would make friends. I would learn to speak Spanish well enough to have long conversations. But I don't live here, I live in California. And I love my home. 

I think this year after walking three Caminos, serving as a hospitalera  twice and as an Amiga twice; I have come to the realization that I enjoy walking more than the voluntary service. It's not an easy thing to come to grips with or to admit, but I believe it is my truth. This is not to say that I haven't enjoyed my times of service. I have enjoyed them very much, met some amazing people and made some great friends. But I prefer walking. Maybe I like the impermanence, the continual change, and the sense of adventure. I'm not sure what it is and maybe I will get some clarity or maybe it is just one of those things I need to recognize and roll with it. Coming from a background of service, this has been a big chunk of truth to learn about myself. 

I seem to have come to a time in my life where I can appreciate that there are some things I like because I like them and something is I like because I think I should like them. I'm getting better at spotting the difference and accepting the reality of that distinction. I am no longer willing to do things because I think I should like them.  

June 18 Wednesday - Santiago Adjustment Day

June 18 Wednesday - Santiago

Adjustment Day

She just stood there, shaking and sobbing for all the world to see. Overcome with emotion, it seemed there was little else to do. I stepped over and quietly wrapped my arms around her and hugged her. She hugged back. Nothing was said, by either of us. No words were necessary. We have both walked the Camino. This was her first. We had both walked into Santiago. We had both walked into the Pilgrim's Office. We had both walked up to the desk, answered those few questions, and had someone inscribe our names in Latin. We had both been handed our Compostela. We had both felt that moment of excitement that we had arrived, we had done it, we had survived, and we are blessed. We had both felt that sense of completeness at our journey's end and we had both felt the overwhelming sadness that it had come to an end, our journey was over, our experience done. No words were necessary. We shared a common bond. 

We released our hold on each other, returned to the day, better people for our shared moment. We nodded and she walked away smiling. I hope she discovers what I discovered, that the journey changes but it never ends. The mark of the Camino is indelible, maybe not for everyone, but for everyone I have known who has been lucky enough to walk this magical path. I walked the Camino and the Camino walked me. It is shared quiet moments, like this one, that make me glad I have the opportunity to be a volunteer, an Amiga, in the Pilgrim's Office. 

June 16 Monday - Zamora to Santiago de Compostela

June 16 Monday - Zamora to Santiago de Compostela

On Saturday, June 14, our replacements arrived. I was taking a nap about 11:30 am when José Luis woke me up to tell me the new hospitaleros would be arriving in five to ten minutes. I had not slept well the night before, because after getting trounced 5 to 1 by the Dutch in the first game of the World Cup in Brazil, the Spanish folk in Zamora still found reason to celebrate, or at least get drunk and very noisy. So I pulled my eyelids up and went downstairs to heat up some coffee, then sat in the office for the next hour and a half while JL kept in constant contact with them, giving minute directions on how to get to the albergue. 

I'm thinking, heck, I arrived by train and.found my way walking with a pack. The previous hospitaleras did not seem to doubt my ability to find my way. And I'm American. The new hospitaleros are from right down the road, in Seville. Last year, I ran into a couple of "spiritual reflections" where I believed the hospitaleros in charge guys who thought they should have gone to the seminary and become priests. José Luis, on the other hand, seems to have missed his calling as a teacher of the mentally disabled. 

He had already spent two weeks directing my life, telling me to get out of the street a car was coming, pointing where to pour the coffee, and a million other minute instructions. Many times I wanted to say to him, I'm old enough to be your mother, and I have not lived this long without the knowledge that one needs to remove themselves from the street when they hear a car approaching. I didn't live this long in Southern California, where there is considerably more traffic than old town Zamora, without knowing this. But he is really sweet, so I bit my tongue, over and over. It is recovering nicely, in case you wondered. I did tell him a couple of times that I wasn't stupid, senile or mentally impaired. And a couple of times I rolled my eyeballs in a "not again" fashion. 

So I have been considering that maybe my spiritual lesson is about being teachable, or humble enough not to be annoyed when some treats as though I am mentally impaired. I spent a good deal of time in the past two weeks in quiet contemplation. There are not many English speaking people on the Via de la Plata. I met one while walking and two during my two weeks in Zamora. I met no other Americans. There were some people who spoke some English as a second language and I can speak Spanish as a second language, not well enough to discuss spiritual matters, topics with nuances, or that require colloquialisms. For some reason, I also didn't feel like blogging. Maybe it was just time to be quiet and reflect. 

Anyway the new hospitaleros arrived and José hurried out to there car and then spent another twenty minutes explaining something to them. Perhaps he was discussing the need to be kind and speak slowly to the mentally handicapped person he was serving with. lol he then brings them in and proceeds to take them through the three stories of the albergue telling them everything they need to know about being a Hospitalero there. I thought he was just going to show them where their rooms were so they could drop their luggage. So I'm still sitting in the office. At this point it's 2pm and time to welcome the pilgrims. I'm hungry so I go downstairs, fix mysf a sandwich and come back to the office. José announces that the three of them are going to lunch and they left for three hours. They came back and then left for the bank. They came back and then left for the store. 

We only had four pilgrims that day. One was a man who had no money and according to his three credencials had walked all over Spain and Portugal during the past three or four months. So I spent some time getting him some coffee and chatting with the other pilgrims. During the two weeks I was there we had an average of about 18 pilgrims each night. But that night there were only four. The next morning I made him a little package of some food to take with him. 

I had planned to stay in the morning and help with cleaning. I went up and stripped my bed. José came up to help with that task. ; ) by the time I got back downstairs to the kitchen, they had torn the ace apart, reorganizing all of the cupboards, changing the paper towel linings on all of the shelves, etc. I decided to quietly slip out. I said my good byes and told them I was going to see if I could catch and earlier train. I said good bye to my Ciqüeñas (Storks) and left. It was Sunday morning in Spain. Very quiet. There wasn't an earlier train so I left my mochilla at the Consignia at the bus station ( the train station doesn't have one,) and spent the morning walking around taking pictures and feeling my feelings. Strangely enough, the thing that brought tears to my eyes was leaving the storks. José was a sweetie, the pilgrims were great, the new hospitaleros were kind (they even brought me a cup of SMOOY when I was sitting in the office,) and the town people were friendly. But it was leaving the storks that made me sad. I had watched them grow, try to fly, and learn to clean their feathers. 

I got to Santiago about 6pm and was walking into town when someone said my name. I looked up and there was John and Stephen! I got a very warm welcome to Santiago and met a Dutch woman, Billie, who will be working in the office too. I also learned that I had my dates wrong. I thought we were beginning work tomorrow and, in fact, we start Tuesday. Maybe I need José Luis after all. lol

And a new adventure begins!  

June 8 and 9 Sunday and Monday Slow Days A Quieting

June 8 and 9 Sunday and Monday

Slow Days A Quieting

Well, Sunday in Spain is usually quiet and most stores are closed. Then Monday was a Zamora holiday of some sort and pretty much everything was closed. So Saturday I went to the Mercado de Abastos and got a bunch of vegetables to make a vegetarian pasta sauce, a cross between ratatouille and spaghetti sauce. I also got some lettuce and tomatoes to make a salad. My plan was to have a community meal on Sunday evening. At that point, I didn't know about the Monday holiday. To have a community meal, you pretty much have to set a time a tell the pilgrims about it when they check in. 

But I got my feelings hurt Sunday morning and decided I wasn't in the mood to organize and cook a community meal. But Sunday evening I was done pouting and decided I would make the sauce and leave it in the stove for the pilgrims. The stuff I bought made a huge pot of the sauce. Since all of them have different eating schedules, I cooked up some pasta and also left some uncooked pasta for those who might come later. It was a big hit and the pilgrims gobbled up most of it. I put the little bit that was left together with some leftover cooked pasta in the refrigerator. 

Monday I finished cleaning early and decided to take my camera for a stroll. Like was going to go to the supermercado, but before I left José Luis told me about the holiday and that everything would be closed. Oh well. He also told me that we were meeting Vicki at noon to go see the Castle. Vicki is a Spanish woman who went to New York to get her Masters in Documentary Photography and while there met and married a New Yorker. So she speaks English and Spanish and is a delightful person to chat with. We had had a long chat over breakfast. But, I'm thinking, how dare he schedule an outing for me without consulting me. But, oh well. So I go out and shoot pictures for an hour or so. It was good for my soul and felt just right. The streets were deserted. Everything, and I mean everything was closed, even the bars. 

I returned in time to go to the castle, but we walked around and looked at the exterior. Once I saw it, I realized I had seen it before. In 2012 when I was living in Salamanca studying Spanish with the 16 drunken teenagers, the school took us to Zamora on a "field trip." In fact, it was in the Castle that I almost lost it when I rounded a corner to find one of the male students peeing in a corner of one of the turrets. Even after I exclaimed a profanity, he didn't understand what was wrong with what he did. But I digress. 

While walking around the outside of the castle Vickie and I talked about photography and art. We all stopped for a drink at the only open bar we could find. I had café and they had a beer. While we were there Vicki told about a project she was doing in the Camino. It sounded interesting. She asked if she could interview us and take our pictures. We both agreed. So she and José Luis went and had lunch and I went back to the albergue for lunch. I needed some quiet time. 

At two, the pilgrims started steaming in and one of them was a chap from London. Oh, goody goody, a native English speaker. Yesterday, there was also an American woman who had lived in Spain, met her Spanish husband on the Camino and they are now living in Saudi Arabia. It's just raining English speakers! lol

Since all the stores and bars were closed and the pilgrims would have trouble finding food, I decided to use the salad ingredients to make two large bowls of ensalada mixta, one with tuna, one without. I also heated up the leftover pasta and cut up a melon we had in our stash and a pineapple left by one of the pilgrims. I put all of the fruit on a tray along with four donut peaches and set the tray and the salads on a table in the dining room along with some pan. Again, I put a sign on it saying it was for the pilgrims and please enjoy. When I came down later everyone was very appreciative. 

I sat for a while chatting with Matthew, the chap from London.  He was very interesting. He did his Ph.D. on immigration and immigrants and is as fascinated by the history of the Iberian Peninsula and Spain as I am. Time passed quickly and soon it was time for the pilgrims to go to bed and for me to set up the breakfast things. I felt good. After breakfast was set up, I went up to my room and looked out at the beautiful panorama of dusk. It was 10 pm and still light. At dusk every evening, these small black birds soar back and forth across the sky. There are hundreds of them and they seem to be enjoying the freedom of flight before turning in for the night. As I stood at the window and watched them, I thought that despite my pouting on Sunday morning I had come out of it and had been the kind of hospitalera that I sincerely want to be. I felt that all was exactly the way it is supposed to be. I was at peace. For at least fifteen seconds. lol

May 7 Saturday - Zamora It's Been Interesting

May 7 Saturday - Zamora

It's Been Interesting

Things around here have been fairly routine. We have gotten the pace down so that we have some time to shower, relax, go out for a walk, or go to the market before we open the doors for the pilgrims. We actually open them all morning. As pilgrims pass by, they ring the bell and ask if they can leave their backpacks inside. We always say yes. This is a three story albergue and most of our cleaning is on the first and second floors, whereas the entry is on the third. That probably sounds backward, but it's not because the albergue is built on a hill. Anyway, when the bell rings we usually have to go up one or two floors to open the door. So I'm still in good shape, even though I'm not walking. 

Yesterday, Bea, José Louis's girlfriend, came for the weekend. She is very nice and we have fun. She said my Spanish has improved just since she saw me a few days ago. It's a good thing she came because about 1 am. José Louis needed to go to the hospital. Apparently, he has kidney stones. So Bea took him to the hospital and then later went to the Farmacía to get pain medication. So he has been in bed, drinking lots of water, all day. Bea helped with the cleaning and then we went out shopping. The church next door, San Cipriano, was open, so we stepped inside. They were preparing for a wedding later in the day. It is a lovely little Romanesque church. 

Then we went to the Mercado de Abastos and Día, a supermercado, to get stuff to make vegetable pasta for Sunday dinner. On the way back we stopped at the Church of Santiago. They had depictions of him as a Peregrino, and another as Santiago Matamoros. I like the Peregrino best. Again, it was a delightful, cozy Romanesque church. I lit two candles. One was for all the Peregrinos out on the Camino. The other was for the Dodgers. I figured it couldn't hurt. lol. Outside we noticed all these older men sitting in the Plaza Santiago, in a line, on a bench. It was classic. I took a picture. I think it will be one of my favorites from this trip. 

After that, we went and had café before returning to the albergue. We had lots of laughs. I kept sending José Luis to his room to rest. It's been a strange day. One Peregrino came in and after I signed him in, he left because he couldn't have a bottom bunk. I asked him if he was injured and needed one. He wasn't. He also wasn't old. He left because he couldn't have a bottom bunk. Another guy came and had a really weird credential. It had stamps and spaces and no particular order of locales. But, oh well, I signed him in and got up to show him to his bed and he said he was leaving. He only wanted a sello. 

Just weird little things like that kept happening. Now Mr. Burple and I are now resting.

June 4 Wednesday - Zamora

June 4 Wednesday - Zamora

Today I found the Mercado de Abastos. These are markets where there sell meat, poultry, fish, vegetables, cheeses, sausages, nuts, spices and fruit from stalls inside the market place. They are kind of like our Farmer's Market, but inside, under a roof and often with two floors. I love these places. And I like to buy my food there because it is fresh. It's also a good place to find romaine lettuce for salads. In the poultry stalls, they have all parts of they chickens for sale, including their feet. The fish are most often whole. It's a trip. The meat stalls actually slice your steak off a slab of beef. I get so used to buying meat wrapped in plastic resting on a styrofoam tray. This connects what I'm eating to an animal. It could turn me back to vegetarianism. 

Instead of going to huge supermarkets like Von's or giant stores like Target, I just walk along the street and stop in little shops. There's a ferretería where I look for a coffee pot, a basket shop where I buy a trash basket for the albergue because one mysteriously disappeared last night. A papelería where I look for a marker. A panadería where I but some bread. And it goes on. It adds a whole other dimension to shopping, especially since it was a warm sunny morning and great to be walking outside. 

We have only five pilgrims tonight. One is a young German woman who stayed a second night because she has tendonitis. She speaks English and helped us with the cleaning. This was great because we were full last night with 32 pilgrims. And there's a couple with a story. She is German and he is English. They met on the Camino several years ago and fell in love. They lived in Liverpool for a few years because he had medical problems. Last year they walked the Camino Frances to Santiago and got married in the Cathedral on June 29. This year the are walking the Via de la Plata and want to be in Santiago for their anniversary. Isn't that a great story? They both speak English and are very nice. 

We also have a young man staying here. He is Bolivian, has lived in Maryland most of his life and is currently living in Salamanca. He speaks English and Spanish and a number of other languages. He is a very interesting young man. 

And I spoke on the phone today. I usually let José Luis answer it because I'm not real confident in my phone Spanish. But he wasn't here so I answered it and talked to a bicyclist answering all his questions. I was shocked when I hung up. I understood what he was asking and he understood my answers. 

Well, that's it for today.