Searching for my memories

It´s been almost four days since my last blog entry, and I´ve been trying ever since to organize my thoughts. Love, is somehting that you never know when or where you will find it. By love I am not talking about Eros, romantic love, but love of the person that you cross on the street, of the people you are taking a journey with or even the person you have still to meet.

I am tired. The curse of womanhood is upon me and I´m afraid that between my exhaustion, that and the events since I have last wrote I am utterly exhausted. The prescription of the day will be two benadryl and bed in a bit, after I write and go and get some fruit and stuff for tomorrow.

In Estella, where I last wrote I was in a lot of pain and my blisters weren´t healing, the ones on my pinkies wrapped around my toe and I got pissed so I cut the skin off, good thing too because the lower layers were coming off from being wet for so long. The following day they were half way to dry (yay!).

The following day I said "screw this" and put on my sneakers, immidiately my feet felt much, much better. Although the arches of my feet hurt after a couple of days from the lack of support from my running shoes on the rocky path, my blisters and my impending tendinitis appreciated it.

Los Arcos is a town that for a Pilgrim is a little bit of a liar, after you officially arrive through the town you have to walk straight through it to get to the Albergure, by that time you are so tired that you just want to sit down and yuo don´t care where the hell you do it. I passed, fell behaind and caught up to several friends along the way that day, always wishing one another "Buen Camino!" no matter how many times yu had already wished each other so.

The Hosteliers at the Albergue were a bit strict and angry looking, but my good mood at having arrived early and in better shape than any other day was not to be thwarted. The time I spent walking alone that day (which was most of the way) was pretty good as I got lots of ideas and spent most of the journey singing, much to the delight of passers by, who gave me lots of compliments. I think I spent close to 30 minutes singing a Disney medley as I am a big fan and have a huge repertoire.

I landed in my room and a few minutes later was followed by my new German friend Daniela, who had the bunk above me. We went to lunch and hung out for a bit and had a quiet afternoon. There was a man who came from Logrono to tend to Pilgrim´s feet and give us massages. I happily paid him 15 Euros for a foot massage, he told me I wasn´t drinking enough water and about three other things that I had been suffering from that I figured he couldn´t possibly know. Only my touching my feet, he knew that I had had throat problems as a child, that I had sinus issues and that I hadn´t been to the bathroom in two days. I was floored! How did this man know this about me simply by touching my feet. He then said " you have a hyper sense of responsibility." and then I wanted to know if he had been reading my journal because it couldn´t be so!

He gave me a syringe and a new way of curing my blisters which consists of draining the liquid with a syringe and injecting Betadie in the blister for it to dry. This process is miraculous! It works! And it is PAINFUL AS ALL HELL! You know how when you apply something to cure a cut you can blow on it to relieve the sting? Well by injecting the BEtine in the blister there is no relief to be had! The sting and throbbing is endless, but worth every seocnd of pain as the next morning the blister is almost totally dry!

That night, all the pilgrims had dinner together as this group decided to make us dinner and we all contributed only 3 Euros. Goes to show where you can feed you you can feed two and so forth. The dinner was nice, but what was totally great was that some of the Spanish guys broke out into song after dinner and then we all contributed songs from our own countries. I sang the Guantanamera and Unforgetable. We danced, laughed and had a ball and got to know a lot more people I had seen many times before but hadn´t actually spoken with.

I´m sure you remember about the 75-year-old grandmother I told you about. I was speaking to her granddaughter Melissa Mclaughlin and I found another layer to the grandmother story that was even cooler. It turns out, Melissa just met her grandmother. Melissa was adopted. HEr parents had always said that of melissa wanted to meet her birth parents that that would be cool One day Melissa decided to do just that and found her mother. She said that her mom is a nice lady but that when she met her grandmother she felt and instant connection. They had spoken about three times when her grandmother called her up and told her she was doing an 800km walk (her third, her first had been to Rome) for her 75th birthday and would Melissa like to come so that they could get to know each other. And so they are. Isn´t that just the most inspiring story you have ever heard?

That night when I went to bed, I realized I had no sleeping bag! I had left my sleeping bag in Estella! The meanie hostelier lady gave me a hard time as she didn´t believe I had forgotten it, but then finally gave me a blanket.

The following day, most people walked to Logroño but about 10 of us walked to the town before where our friend Pedro (May - promounced MA-I) is from. He was inviting us all to his culinary society where his parents would make us all paella! A Culinary Society is like a kitchen + dining room that you can cook in and throw parties, they have a wine cellar and the ability to buy the wine in boxes so that it´s cheaper. You bring your food and cook but then there are people there to clean after you, it´s great for people who want to entertain and as in most of Europe live in a small apartment.

During the day, Mai was nice enough to take three of us (Daniela, Christian - both German - and I) to the mall so that I could buy new shoes and a sleeping bag and the guys a couple of things too. I also got a water bottle as the stupid Camel Pack is more of a pain in the ass than it´s worth, it spills, it warms, it bunches up in your pack, and if you don´t put it in right you get no water through your straw!

After all my purchases and going to the post office to send grandpa my boots and sneakers I did and enormous happy dance with Daniela in tow through half the mall (I had promised her after all).

The paella was delicious!!!!!! And we got to try two wines from another region. I tried to pair this one wine with dark chocolate and though it did change the taste, I´m not sure it was as effective as when Danny did it for me. Seeing as I´m sure I got it all wrong. I am not a sommelier after all.

The following day most of us were supposed to do a small stint to Logroño only 11km away but my friend David and I got abandoned and the Germans, the Belges and Mai took off almost 30 kms to Najera.

David and I arrived at Logroño at 11am. The hostel didn´t allow you to leave packs til 12 so we went into a coffee shop about two blocks away. The lady asked us of we wanted to toast with jam and I said that I would please. I asked her to put some ham on it. She looked at me in surpris and said it was a weird combination. I told her about the Elena Ruth sandwich but that I preferred goat cheese, raspberry preserves and turkey grille din a sandwhich. She was so jazzed wiht the idea that as of this morning there is a Veronica´s Sandwich in Logroño. David was tripping out for the rest of the day saying "Dude! You were only in town 10 minutes and they name a sandwich after you?!"

We dumped our sacks and walked around. Logroño is beautiful. I went last year for Pablo and Marta's wedding but as I had a sinus infection, saw very little of it! We went for pinchos, which seems to be David's famous passtime, and saw the sites. When we arrived back at the Albergue 5 hours later there was a huge group waiting for them to open the doors. It is customary for Albergues to open at 1pm for tired pilgrims but I guess in La Rioja they don´t opne til four, which pisses off a lot of exhausted pilgrims. The man in the hostel was awful to a girl and there was a big huff. They had taken our passports at the door and that wasn´t customary either! We didn´t like the scene so we left. The only other hostel was full from the overflow and bad juju so David and I suited up again and walked 12km to the next town.

It was awful. Thinking we hadn´t to walk anymore we had done the tourism thing, had a couple of glasses of wime (I mean it is La Rioja) and were exhausted. Those 12k felt like 21. We got to the next town almost at 10pm. The mosquitoes killed me as it was sunset and upon seeing us, the lady at the hostel told us where we could get warm soup.

We slept OK and saw some friend we knew. Today was kind of hard as our bodies were still recouping form yesterday so upon arrival at the hostel today we decided to take it easy no matter what sites there are to see.

We walked most of today without talking, side by side but as if we didn´t know each other. That´s how it works really. It´s someone you don´t know so there´s no preassure.

Today was a real treat for me in one way. I really appreciated and thought of my friend Danny. As I walked through the vineyards I got to see a bit of the raw material for all the things he´s always talking about. I got to see the nature around the wine that influences the wine´s taste. David is an environmentalist and knows alot about nature so he picked rosemary for us to chew on and lavendar for me to smell, I also saw basil, lemongrass and other things growing on the side of the path just around the vines. So when you taste apple or smell rosemary in a wine, be sure that less than 20 feet from the field there was a tree or a bush.

I cried today from exhaustion and because I missed my boyfriend. But tonight I will sleep well and tomorrow will be another cool day.

with all my love,

V