Update

I haven’t posted in a while, so I will have missed some things. Carlos and I worked in the garden the second day and got it ready for planting. I made Mexican Chicken Soup, which turned out to be a big hit. The third day Cloti made lentils (lentajes) for lunch, and there was so much food that we told Stef the cooking was done until we had eaten down what we had. But last night Cloti showed me how to make tortilla de patata for us to take on our excursion today.

Antonio told me you had to dice the potatoes and soak them overnight, but Cloti just diced and fried them with onions right away. Then she mixed the potato/onion mixture with six beaten eggs and a little milk. She didn’t have a tortilla pan either. She flipped the tortilla onto a plate then slid it into the pan to cook on the other side. She did this twice.

On Friday I bought some chalk and started fixing the large black tree in the mural a volunteer started a few months ago. The tree was knobby and kind of…threatening. Yesterday I finished the drawing and painted over the black bits I don’t want with white. Tomorrow I will do another coat and possibly cover the white with the red and yellow of the sunset.

I should have taken a picture of what it looked like before I started.

Today we went on an excursion. Stef asked if I would contribute to the gas, and I said of course I would. We went all around the mountains, to a village where the newest house was over 200 years old. In a different village we saw a church that was established in 608 and reconstructed in 1997. I told Stef it was hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that that church was over 1,000 years older than my country.

So many of the villages here are dying. The 200 years or more place has a total of ten people living in it. Pola de Allande, one of the larger villages, is full of the elderly. Our house is one of the few where younger, more open-minded people live, according to Stef. I believe it. In the first village we toured, Montse said the house where it said, “Se Vende,” (For Sale) was 50,000 euros. The thing is, it would probably cost that much again to make it livable.

And I could only live here from April to October. I arrived in the middle of March, in Madrid which is south and not in the mountains, and I was cold practically the entire time. I still get cold here, especially at night.

That is actually one of the reasons I haven’t been posting. During the day I’m busy, and at night I’m too cold.

As long as I am updating, I will tell you guys about the Market of San Miguel. My guide to the Royal Palace referred to it as the “temple of gastronomy.” I was so sorry I wasn’t very hungry when I was there. I did get myself a fruit skewer.

They had almost every kind of food, from all over Spain, that you can imagine. I plan on going back early, just so I can go there and eat.

Here are pictures from our excursion today.

This is a wild horse from a herd near the village. Can you see her baby?

A place where the Virgin Mary supposedly appeared. This picture was taken from the dam.

Stef says at this time of year the road I am standing on should be underwater. The water is supposed to be up to the trees in spring. Asturias, here in the mountains, will be okay, but he says he doesn’t know what the south will do.

My and My Trouble-Making Self

Yesterday at long last I toured the Prado. I bought a combination ticket for it and the Royal Palace, both tours in English. The confirmation email was for only the Royal Palace in Spanish.

I told them the problem at the Palace but they didn’t solve it. I guess because it wasn’t their problem. When I got to the Prado we of course were a ticket short. So I told the problem again.

The guide said, “No problem; children are free,” and he took the youngest child and her mother off.

Children weren’t free.

The mother got very angry and said, trying to be respectful to me, that my problem wasn’t her problem. She was so aggressive to the guide he got angry in turn and said he was just a guide, not a secretary, that he had nothing to do with tickets.

I tried to defuse the situation, while still getting it solved, by asking who did I need to talk to. About that time another guide who had the company card came by and they bought me a ticket.

I was sorry to make everyone wait and the guide angry. If he hadn’t bought me a ticket my plan was to go back to the hotel and have the concierge help me pitch a wall-eyed fit.

I do NOT recommend Feel the City tours, and not just because of that. I got to the Palace at 9:25, twenty minutes early so I could solve my problem. Took a taxi and everything. We didn’t go in to the palace until almost an hour later. There were audio problems and personnel problems and more. I could have walked and saved nine Euros.

However, on the walk between the palace and the Prado our guide pointed out the San Miguel Market, except she called it “the Temple of Gastronomy.”

OMG, ya’ll. It deserves its own entry.

So I’ll go back to the palace and the Prado.

The palace is the biggest in Europe, over 3,200 rooms. It is bigger than Buckingham Palace or Versailles. We toured 25 rooms, less than 1%.

It was like some of the other palaces I’ve seen. Gold, frescoes on the ceiling, mirrors, marble and parquet floors. This was the first time I saw silk on the walls, though. I longed to touch it, but there were museum personnel in every room. My favorite room was the bathroom (surprise, surprise) with green walls and white porcelain figures all over. Google it, y’all.

The Prado was like other world-class museums. Velasquez, Goya, El Greco, a lot of others I’d never heard of, and Rubens. A lot of Rubens. Wisely, most of the paintings or artists had something to do with Spain, and apparently Rubens was commissioned to decorate some building and most of his paintings were from there.

Our guide started with a medieval painting that contained a “cacatero.” The painting showed Charon traveling with a soul, which was looking toward an angel on the Heaven side and so didn’t see the small figure taking a dump outside the entrance to Hell, which was disguised with lush vegetation.

Cacateros are always associated with Hell in these paintings, because apparently Adam and Eve would have never taken a shit if not for original sin.

Medieval people believed some weird stuff.

We saw most of the really important paintings (Las Molinas, La Perla, etc.) Some of my favorites were “the Black Paintings,” done on the walls of Goya’s house and removed after his death. The guide’s favorite black painting and mine were not the same because of a bad thing I saw the day before. I won’t detail what it was in case someone who knows Antonio reads this and shares. He forbid me to tell him the bad thing.

After an hour and a half we were on our own.

I ate my Croque Monsieur, which was “heated” for me but still stone cold, then walked around.

The only thing I saw on my own that was truly remarkable was “the treasure of the Dauphin.” This was a collection of objects (vases, cups, ewers, etc.) carved from various semi-precious stones ( rock crystal, lapis lazuli, jade, sardonyx (the first time I’ve really seen my birthstone.)) My favorite was the ewer (pitcher) with Narcissus as the handle. He is looking into the pitcher, not away, so when it is full of water he sees his reflection. I learned that from a video I saw; the pitcher was of course dry and in a case.

By 5:45 I was tired and my knee was stiff and really hurting. So I went to the hotel and took Aleve. Then I went out to have my “last dinner in Madrid.”

No Prado Today

I had to find an ATM before I went anywhere. So I used the WIFI at the hostel to find one the map said was 0.3 miles away. It wasn’t there. I took a picture of my street so I could find it again.

Calle Napoles at the intersection with Calle Andorra

So I figured,”Find a major street and there’ll be an ATM.” Ummm, no. I walked over a mile down Calle de Silvano (a street people kept telling me about yesterday) and never saw one. I had to turn on Calle de Canillas (another major street) before I found one. On the way I passed a man with my hiking poles who wasn’t a pilgrim. I wanted to bring mine but there wasn’t room.

However I did find a supermercado AND a McDonald’s. Actually the McDonald’s was in the food court of a shopping mall, so I found Starbucks and Taco Bell as well. I didn’t go into the mall, although on second thought they might have had a sport store. I want a thermal blanket ( one of those silver jobbies; I meant to get one before I left.)

It is spring here in Madrid, but I was out today in long underwear, jeans, a turtleneck, a hoodie, and a plastic rain jacket and I was only a little too warm some of the time. Texan through and through. There were only three of us in a room for six last night. If that is true again I’m stealing some blankets off another bed. Either that or doubling up on the long underwear. Maybe both. The supermercado had something Antonio loves that I am never making for him.

I also bought a cookie I love that you can’t get in Texas.

Thin, crisp, buttery, with a hint of cinnamon…Oh, they are so good. I ate so many on the way home I replaced almost all the calories I used walking four miles.

Aaron has asked me if I found the plain in Spain where it rains. Well, it was raining today but I think you can see a plain isn’t anywhere close.

There may be rain but that ain’t no plain

Cars in Madrid are smaller than in the USA but not as small as I expected. And clearly the rules for parking are different.

In Texas you could never park so close to a corner

Anyway, I was so tired after my walk I laid down and napped. Had a really weird dream too. Now it’s after 6:30 and the Prado closes at 8:00, so I will try again tomorrow.

Tonight I think I will go to the restaurant next door and have something hot. I had a ham and bacon sandwich from the supermercado for lunch. (Breakfast was the salad, which was perfectly good.) I could cook but I’m scared of the kitchen. It’s in the front lobby, so everyone can see you’re incompetent. I will also work on that script I was supposed to finish on the plane. I have got to make a decision about directing too.

Half Oops

My reservation is for today, so that’s good.

Oops

I don’t know how I could have been so stupid as to think my flight to Madrid was almost 24 hours after the flight to Dallas. But I did. Not only have I donated the cost of my Dallas hotel room, my hotel reservation in Madrid starts a day after I need it. Adventures with Jane, indeed. I’ll keep y’all posted.

Easterwood Airport

A Brief Update

It’s been years since I wrote in this blog. So much has happened. Antonio moved out, the pandemic happened, Antonio and I began speaking again, we began working for the same company, Antonio went back on camino, Antonio decided to move to Spain to run a bar for his parents, and I decided to rent my house and travel for most of the year.

In just a few days I will be going to Spain to volunteer in an albergue there. I’m both excited and scared. I have never done anything like this before. But growth is uncomfortable. The thing I am most worried about is I am supposed to cook vegetarian. I’ve never really cooked that way.

I am hoping to write a second book that tells the story of pilgrims from the other side. This albergue is on the Camino Primitivo, however, so I’m not sure how many pilgrims there will be. But I have plans to go to a second albergue (also vegetarian) in August (if the paid gig I’m trying for doesn’t work out) and it is on the Camino Frances.

I will keep you guys posted, but to the eight people who follow this blog (WordPress won’t tell me who,) I’m off again!

A Camino Lesson

It’s been almost exactly a year since I returned from Spain. There have been some changes in that time. I bought a house, retired from teaching, gained 10 lbs I neither wanted or needed…you know, life stuff. And in all those experiences I never really had a moment when I consciously knew or applied a lesson I learned from walking across Spain.

But then I never felt the Camino taught me some of the things it taught others. That I was strong and determined? I knew that from riding in the MS 150 the year before. To be tolerant and accepting? Kind of already was, although I learned to be more so. So in many ways the Camino was confirmation rather than revelation. Until yesterday.

Yesterday Sarah moved in to her first apartment. My birthday gift to her (saved from her actual birthday in April) was to help with the move. So I rented a Penske truck and hauled the washer and dryer my cousin Melissa gave her from Brenham to Houston.

Now to understand this story you have to know that I was born with amblyopia, or lazy eye. My left eye does 80% of my seeing, so I have very little stereo vision and I struggle with depth perception. For years, when my life felt out of control, my brain would deal with the stress by dreaming I was driving a large vehicle (18-wheeler, school bus, once an incredibly tall bicycle) that was high off the ground. I would struggle to control what was out of control, because I was so separated from the road.

The guy at the rental place said, “You’re going to love this,” and showed me the shiny new truck, only 20,000 miles on it, with a cab floor at hip-level.

I did not love it.

It took a lot to stay calm, swing myself up into the seat, and start driving. I circled the parking lot a little, trying to get a feel for the truck, but I was worried about the mileage so I headed to Mom’s where the washer and dryer were, heart in my mouth and prayers on my lips. The hour-long trip to Houston was going to be the literal stuff of nightmares for me.

When I got to Mom’s I was nearly in tears, but I didn’t take out her fence when I drove in nor did I roll the thing in the ditch, like I worried. Charles and Randall loaded the stuff while I washed my face and printed out directions to Sarah’s apartment (I left my phone at home, like a goofball.) And then I headed out.

65 miles of the 67 mile one-way journey were on the highway. I wasn’t worried about them. I was worried about tight corners and small passages in her complex, and the roads to her complex. What was I going to find at the end? How was I going to navigate this behemoth through the streets of Houston?

Then a still small voice said, “What if this were the Camino?” Instantly my whole body relaxed. “Oh, well, if this were the Camino, no problem. Everything would work out. The roads would be fine, or there would be somebody to help me navigate them, or something. If this were the Camino there’d be nothing to worry about.”

“Then go on Camino,” said the voice. And I did.

When I walked in to Santiago the summer of 2018 there were boy scouts (or some Spanish equivalent) asking the pilgrims why they walked. I told them I walked to find an answer to the question, “What next?” I didn’t get an answer to that question. Instead I found that the answer to that question didn’t matter. God provided for me throughout that journey, and He would continue to do so.

And you know what? I was right.

Readjustment

I should have done this each day that I’ve been back, instead of waiting a week. But you can’t get back lost time so…Being back with my family was good. Being back with Fred was better. Sleeping in my own bed has been wonderful, and yet I keep waking up disoriented. I don’t exactly think I’m in Spain, because I never slept the same place twice while I was there. Yet I wake and I stare at the ceiling and then at the room and I reorient myself.

Going Home

I’m in the airplane to fly from Santiago to Paris. I feel naked without my mochilla.

Today I went to the pilgrims’ museum. It was there, reading about pilgrimages and their importance through history and why people do them, that it hit me. I’m a pilgrim.

A pilgrim.

I’ve stepped into the stream of history, become part of something thousands of years old.

I saw pictures of people bathing in the Ganges. Read how pilgrimages change people, change the world. And I realized, I who always feel that if I’VE done it it can’t be that special, that I have done something special. That while 300,000 people complete the Camino each year, I am still unique.

I’m having some trouble with that.

After meeting Bjorn I went back to my hotel and got my bag, then took a taxi to the airport. I realized I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, admittedly at 11, so I got a bocadillo and a Coke. Almost 9 euros! I’m spoiled. For 10 euros I could get a three-course pilgrims’ menu plus wine. (Sigh) I think there is a lot of the Camino I will miss.

The flight to Paris had only one interesting thing happen. I was sitting next to two Asians. One asked the steward for tea, specifying “hotto.” The steward was totally confused. I, with my 37 days of pilgrim practice, said, “He wants hot tea.” That’s happened to me more than once lately.

Well, the other interesting thing was we disembarked on the tarmac. I haven’t done that in a while.

The cab driver flirted with me and told me I was beautiful.But that may have been the tip. My hotel was awful and didn’t have a bathtub. It didn’t have a restaurant either, so I got a Twix and some madelines out of the vending machine.

I repacked my backpack and went to sleep. Fred called a little after 6 to make sure I was up and not going to miss my plane. Apparently I am never allowed to leave again.

When I check in this morning somehow I don’t have a seat. The man says the plane is very full, and something about standby, but that doesn’t make sense. He says I will get a seat assigned at the gate. I think this is the norm for everyone. So I wait at the gate, and my name appears on a screen.

When I check in I ask why my name is on the screen. “You were on standby, but we have a seat. Is good news for you.” Well, it is good news but I’m confused as to why I need it. I bought my ticket in December. Surely the airline knew I was flying.

I realize that all the zen-like pilgrim calm and acceptance would have been out the window had things worked out differently. Someone would have had to EXPLAIN why, after seven months, the airline hadn’t figured out I was supposed to be on the flight. I might have even used inappropriate language. Fortunately I was spared, and I can continue to pretend I am above such things.

In a beautiful twist of fate, not only am I on the flight, but the only empty seat is NEXT TO ME! I get a window. I get space to curl up or stretch out. This must be my reward. I’ll take it, God, I’ll take it.

I have set off EVERY SINGLE SECURITY GATE I’ve gone through. I think it is the various pins and screws that now hold bits of me together. I have been patted down, wanted, and had my hands wiped for residue.

Speaking of which, we were asked to stay on the plane while Customs boarded IT. Then they called for a passenger, Khalil somebody. Then after a bit they let us deplane.

I keep confusing airport personnel. “Is this it?” as I put my cell phone and money belt in a bin. “Yes.” “Did you buy anything in Paris?” “No.” Clearly I am not the norm, and I see it as I look around me.

People are absolutely anchored, tethered, by stuff. They haul it in bags, so many they can’t carry them all but need a cart. I have to wait to deplane while everyone gets their stuff. The carousels rotate with it, and the shops we pass urge us to buy more. And while I’m not at all sure I could be a digital nomad anymore, this is a lesson I hope stays learned. I need people and experiences, not stuff.