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
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