It's a Conspiracy

Lots of things are conspiring against me lately. For example:

A couple of my friends just got back from Lisbon--one of my favorite places.

One of my friends is about to hop through the islands of the South Pacific.

I have been sorting a bowl full of foreign coins from a dozen countries.

This afternoon I caught a whiff of that pre-rain smell mixed with the smell of car exhaust...which always reminds me of the city I lived in in Spain. (Romantic, I know.)

Counting Crow's Holiday in Spain came out of my speakers when my ipod was on shuffle. {...We could simply pack our bags and catch a plane to Barcelona 'cause this city's a drag...}

And now, just like that...I'm feeling restless.

So, in honor of wanderlust, I present you with:

{Barcelona's Sagrada Familia}

{Venice's Grand Canal}

{German tourists on a canal boat in Amsterdam}

{A Christmas tree in front of Notre Dame in Paris}

Just because. 

Finesterre (Photo Edition!)

Who needs birthday cake when you have flan?

Hiking it up to the lighthouse/"edge of the world" with fellow pilgrims to watch the sunset. 

Look!

Kilometer 0.00! At last!

Peregrinos soaking it all in

(Don't worry, I was being very careful!)

Watching the sun die...

I almost forgot that I was supposed to throw a rock into the ocean--one for me and one for each of my Sevillan Camino friends. Or...at least that is what I think I was supposed to do. They had to enlighten me on all of these traditions. 

My certificate of completion for the walk to Finisterre (signed by the mayor!)

Local fishermen

(ha, if you look closely my poor feet are actually bleeding in this picture after I had a run in with a broken shell)

The perfect end. 

Update from Santiago: The End and the Epilogue

It's all old news by now, but I found my update from Santiago that Blogger never posted.  Connection is too slow for the pictures though... (one day there will be pictures on my blog again!). 

Coffee shops have a special place in my heart. After downing untold numbers of cafe con leches in Spanish bars and cafes over the last month and a half I somehow have found myself in a trendy coffee shop in Santiago to pass the rest of the morning. I'm sitting at a table by the window watching pilgrims hurry by on their way to the cathedral (and saw 4 of my pilgrim old friends!) and catching up on a little wifi. The real miracle of it is that they are playing all my favorite songs: Old school Jack Johnson, The Swell Season, Damien Rice, some indie bands and Coldplay--remixed with Latin beats. It's a good place to sit by myself a bit and plan my next few steps. Because honestly, it's been a while since I really had to plan anything. 

One of the many beautiful things of the Camino de Santiago is that for however long it takes you to get to Santiago you really don't have to make many daily decisions. You wake up and you walk. When you get tired you look for an albergue and stop. For a person like me, who is horrible with decisions, it's bliss. Somehow it clears you mind to make decisions about big things in your life when you aren't weighed down with the little ones. 

Anyway, I am in Santiago now (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). So it is time to start up with the decisions and travel plans again. I had been thinking about walking to Finisterre (Latin for The End of the World) for most of my Camino, or at least after it started to look like I would arrive in Santiago well before my flight date. The last week or so of walking though, I started to change my mind. Although its only (!) 89 kilometers more, I could feel myself winding down. My last big walking day ended with pain in both ankles and two new blisters. I decided Santiago was the completion of the Camino de Santiago for me. 

I stayed in Monte do Gozo the night before my arrival where you can see the cathedral of Santiago in the distance. Spotting the destination of my 700km+ journey for the first time was thrilling. I spent the night reflecting and celebrating with fellow pilgrims (and eating the fantastic Galician beef) and then we woke up early to make our triumphal entry to the city. I walked in the final 5 kilometers with two of my absolutely favorite people of my Camino and we took the plaza by storm--banging our walking sticks, blowing whistles and hugging in celebration. It was a feeling like no other--a feeling of huge accomplishment, joy, relief, peace...and even a bit of the sadness that comes at the end of a journey mixed in. 

We did all the pilgrim rituals and requirements--we "hugged" the statue of St. James (Santiago) in the alter of the cathedral, attended pilgrim mass, received our Compostela (ancient latin document stating our indulgence, or forgiveness of sins) complete with our names written in latin and then last night took part of another ancient tradition--eating in the Dos Reyes Parador (the fanciest of Spain's hotels which are all in converted historical buildings) for free! Originally a pilgrims hospital, they have been providing food to pilgrims for something like 600 years. Now that the Parador has taken over the building they still keep the tradition alive by giving a free meal to 10 pilgrims every day. 

I spent the rest of my time poking around in churches and monasteries and just taking in the accomplishment with good friends. I ended the day yesterday like I have so many others over the last month--siting in the plaza, taking in the last rays of sunshine and thinking over my Camino. It's been a long, varied, sometimes painful but incredibly beautiful journey. I'm not sure I'll ever really be able to describe the experience, but I know that it has changed me. 

In fact, it has changed me so much that after two days of rest I woke up in the albergue this morning and decided that I wanted to walk to Finisterre. It's only 89 km after all. 

So after walking west for so long, tomorrow I'll strap on my backpack again, continue to reflect for a few more days and then conclude my pilgrimage in perhaps the best way possible--by watching the sun set at the end of the world. 

Espana, Mi Amor

Spain, my love, it's time to say goodbye. Sadly tomorrow I board my plane for Croatia.

It's been almost 2 months, and they've been great. I know we have had a love/hate relationship at times in the past but this go round everything has been nothing but rosy (although that might be partially because of the pink tinted glasses I accidentally bought when I lost my sunglasses). The cafe con leche each morning (and midmorning...and afternoon...) was just what I needed to get through the day. Your ever present tortilla espanol was delicious. A celebratory round of chocolate con churros was the perfect way to start and end my Camino.

The views--of the mountains, plains and everything in between--have been fantastic. The cities--from the ghost towns to Barcelona--were (almost) all lovely. The cathedrals were inspiring. Your old people? Charming. Your language...well it of course made a fool of me several times, but I enjoyed speaking it nonetheless. Your weather treated me well...except for those two days. When it hailed on me.

But don't worry. I'm over it.

In general, thanks for being my happy place. I knew you'd sort me out.

Here's to hoping it won't be too long till we meet again.

Besos!

Camino De Santiago

OK, so today was my first officially Camino free day. Of course, like all of my days off from the Camino...I spent a large chunk of the day walking around. I also spent a couple of hours on the beach, took a nap and an extra long shower in my hotel room. That´s right, I said hotel room. Last night I stayed in the municipal pilgrim´s hostel, well because it was the last night I could. But tonight I have a room all to myself--que lujo!

Anyway, I´ve been getting lots of questions about my Camino, so I thought I´d just do a little FAQ. Sounds fun, no?

Where did you start? I started in Pamplona. There´s no official start for any of the Caminos (since traditionally the start was your  house, where ever that was) but many people start in St. Jean just over the French boarder or in Roncesvalles which is on the Spanish side of the boarder. In order to get a Compostela you have to walk at least the last 100 km, so lots of people start in Saria which is the town closest to the 100 km mark.

How much did you walk? About 800 km, or more or less 500 miles.

How long did it take you? I started April 5th and ended in Finisterre yesterday May 16th. That included a day to see Burgos and Leon, 2 days to see friends in Cantabria, and 2 days in Santiago.

What did an average day on the Camino look like? About 6 am people start rustling things around in plastic bags and shining their flashlights around. I generally just turned over, pulled the covers over my head and slept till about 7. Especially in April, the sun didn´t come up till about 8, so I never really saw the point to getting up too early. I was usually on the trail sometime between 7.30 and 8 and would walk till around 2.30 or so taking some breaks along the way.  Most of the albergues/pilgrim hostels opened at 2, so again there was no sense getting their too early. Long days meant sometimes not getting to town until later--I think 6pm was one of my latest days. Generally I´d eat a late Spanish lunch, have a shower, wash clothes, find a grocery store/pharmacy/see what there is to see in the town., chat a bit, have dinner and then go to bed at about 9 or 10. They days filled up quickly. Even when there was absolutely nothing you had to do, finding the energy to
do anything but sit around was sometimes tough.
How fast did you walk? They say most people average 4 km an hour, and I´d generally do about that. In the mornings I generally walked faster. I´d also walk faster or slower depending on if I was walking with someone else or how steep and rocky the incline/decline was.

How far did you walk? I tried to keep things under 25 km a day. Most days that was really comfortable. I did several days over 30 km, and those, especially back to back, start to take their toll. I went pretty fast through the Meseta in order to make it to Leon by Easter, and afterward swore off the 30 km days if I could help it. 33 km was the longest day for me and 5 (the walk from Monto do Gozo to Santiago) was the shortest.

Eat any good food? Oh man. So much good food. Part of it is that after a long day of walking everything just tastes better because you are so hungry.  But I will admit that hardly a day went by without cafe con leche and homemade flan. Lunch was generally a 3 course affair (you can generally get a menu of the day which includes 3 courses, bread, wine, tax and service for 10 euro or less). Dinner mostly a salad or some soup. Breakfast was almost always coffe and a banana or toast with butter and peach jam (which I have come to really love). Also, ever since we got to Galicia we have eaten extraordinarily well. The cows here smell really bad...but they taste really good.

How was the weather? The first week was scorchingly hot. The second week had thunder and hail storms (not fun!). We had a lot of great weather mixed in also a lot of days where it rained only in the afternoons. The weather can certainly make a day worse or better, but in the end, you walk no matter what.

Albergues? Pilgrim hostels? What are those? Pilgrims get credentials which get stamped along their camino. These credentials allow you to stay in pilgrim hostels along the way. Especially in the beginning many of these are run either by the city, a religious organization in town, or by a volunteer organization. There are also private hostels along the Camino. Especially for the first 2/3 of the Camino the average price was 5 euros a night. Lots of places were donation only. Towards the end things started to get a bit more expensive with albergues averaging around 10 euros. The municipal hostels were so bad at this point in the camino though, that it was generally worth it to pay a bit more.

The albergues all varied. Most all had bunk beds with anywhere from 4 to 100 people sleeping in each room (earplugs are necessary!). Most had hot water.Showers seemed to always have just a push button for water which meant the water came out some variation of scalding or freezing, but it generally worked out ok. Sometimes there was a separate shower room for men and women, which generally didn´t matter. Except in Galicia. Where in the municipal albergues there were no curtains on the showers and they were mixed gender.

Lots had their own kitchens (although in Galicia it seemed most of them lacked ANYthing to actually cook with) and some kind of place to do laundry--by hand or machine. Many also came with fun extras like a garden, or a ruined monastery, or coup of live chickens.

I will say that the albergues had me worried when I started. I am sure they are much worse in the summer when they are crowded and hot, but I really only had 2 or 3 bad albergue experiences in all of my Camino. (That said I am glad to be sleeping in a hotel for the night!)

Did you get...bedbugs??? No. I don´t know if it was my ¨sleep sack¨which I sprayed with antibug stuff before I left, or that the albergues were bug free, or if it was my nightly prayers to ¨not let the bed bugs bite¨ but no bugs for me. (Although some people I travelled with got them. One girl had bites all over her face!!)

Are your leg muscles huge now? Yes. Many days you feel like a mountain goat going up and down hauling all your stuff. By the end though, you are used to the hills (which is good because Galicia is full of them!).

Did you carry your bag the whole way? How much did it weigh? Yes. With some food and enough water for the day it weighed about 8.5 kilos or...19 pounds or so? By the end of the camino I had lost or thrown out quite a few things and started carrying less water, so maybe it weighed less by the end.

Would you ever do it again? Maybe one day. But...not for a while.

OK, that about sums up the questions I have been getting. Let me know if you have more! Tomorrow I am taking the bus back to Santiago where I will catch a flight to Barcelona. Because Vueling changed my flight 3 days (who does that!?!)  I´ll have a couple days to hang out in Barcelona and then on the 21st I´m off to Croatia!

Can´t believe Im leaving Spain so soon!

I'm Off!

I got all my errands run today--which is a small miracle in itself. All that is left is to go back to the post office and mail away all of my non-essentials (including, yes, my laptop). Today I picked up a sleeping bag, a rain coat and a whistle (better safe than sorry I figured). I've got water and snacks for tomorrow. I got some maps at the tourist information office. I think I'm ready!

Part of me feels like I am still not prepared. I don't have the stages or days all mapped out with which cities I want to stay in. A little part of me feels like I am going to make it outside Pamplona's city limits and realize I have no idea what I am doing. 

But maybe that is part of the journey. The plan for the next month and a half or so is just to wake up and walk west. Nothing more, nothing less. 

I still don't exactly know what I plan to get out of the Camino, or have a good articulate reason why I decided to walk over 700 kilometers of it. Part of it is to celebrate my 25th birthday in a special way (the goal is to make it to Santiago by May 16th). I also know that it will be some good time by myself, some good time to think. The mountains will no doubt hold some beautiful views and the plains the space to figure a few things out. I know I will meet some amazing people along the way. And while I am sure it will include both some highs and some lows, if I know myself, it will hold some good adventures. Finally, in ways that I'm sure I can't now imagine, I am certain I am going to encounter the divine along the way. 

So this is it--I'm headed west starting tomorrow morning. I'm sure I'll have plenty of stories to tell when I get back. 

Itinerary Update

Santiago De Compostela

So...I changed my mind.

I was feeling so stressed trying to get everything lined up for my trip (or trips--it was like trying to plan 4 trips at once). And I was having trouble getting my tickets bought and all of a sudden I thought...maybe I don't want to go there anyway. Also, I found my old "to-go" list on a post it note. So I looked deep and asked myself what I really wanted to do.

I wanted to go to Spain. I want to walk the Camino de Santiago. I didn't want to go back to Asia. I wanted to relax the pace.

I decided I have all my life to travel. For now what I really want is to take a sabbatical and rest and recoup. Also, I figure if I am going to throw myself a proper quarter-life crisis (and actually I realized it should probably be called a third-life crisis...which is even scarier!) then what better thing to do than to walk an 800 km pilgrimage route all by myself for a month? That is bound to sort me out.

Now, I had a minor relapse where I forgot about those things called visas, which only allow you to stay 90 days in an increasingly large area of all of Europe, so I had to be a bit creative, but I am oh-so happy with the result. (PS. Tip of the day: Do NOT try to overstay a Schengen/tourist visa in Europe anymore! Apparently they are on their way to making the Schengen zone into a fortress and are handing out fines in the thousands along with 5 year bands nowadays!) Anyway, here is the itinerary, part duex!

Step one: Central America (no change here): Costa Rica (I booked myself a place on the beach for the first week to just chill!), Panama, Nicaragua

Step two: Greece, Cyprus

Step three: Spain! Flying into Girona (Barca), then making my way to the French side of the boarder to start the Camino Frances. Then I'll be walking my way across the peninsula aiming to make it to Santiago by my 25th birthday.

Step four: Balkans--Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, Albania. (I've also decided if I get there and don't love my time there that I'll head over to Turkey and spend some time in the countryside.)

Finally, step five: I'll make my way back into the Schengen zone, making sure to get up to Cinque Terre on my way to fly home out of Zurich on August 2.

So there you have it. Yes, I am very last minute (I leave in about 36 hours at this point!), but whatever, I am excited! And I have the permagrin to prove it!

Itinerary

OK, sorry for the blogging hiatus. Along with celebrating the holidays with family and friends I squeezed in a quick road trip and then was lucky enough to land a surprise visit from a Supy who was rerouted to Dallas due to snow in NYC. I shouldn't say I have been busy, but my days have definitely been full--full of board games and food and late night conversations and travel channel episodes. But full nonetheless. And as of late they have been full of one thing specifically.

Airport codes.

After my break for the holidays I got serious about trip planning. I am happy to say that I have tickets with my name on them and a basic itinerary! Now to get to this point, I have filled a whopping 13 pages in my little spiral with airport codes and possible routes. But I will admit it. I have a soft spot in my heart for airport codes. I remember Matt and Supy having Airport Code Bees in Santander to see who knew the most. I'm no expert like those guys, but I do love the airports.

It's been nice learning some new ones (SJO, MGA, GUA, BKK, JKT, KUL, AMM, BUY) and then there are the ones that feel like old friends (MAD, LHR, ATH, MXP, STN, BCN, ORY, STN) or old enemies (CDG, ERW). I've just been plugging them into Kayak.com and remixing them until it spit out something good. It's tedious, but not a bad way to pass the day.

Anyway, I said I came up with an itinerary, so here goes. It is still a little nebulous in areas, but part of that is by design. I wanted to stay away from having to get complicated or expensive visas, to go to places I haven't been, have nice weather, relax and see some incredible things. I divided it up into three legs that would let me do most of the traveling over land. That is, for one thing, cheaper, but it also gives me the flexibility to spend more time in places that I end up liking and to move on quickly from places that I don't. I think it's also more ideal for people who try to plan 6+ month trips in 2 weeks.

So starting January 18th (!) I'll be in:

Leg 1 Central America: Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua
Leg 2 Eastern Europe: Greece, Albania, Macedonia, Serbia + Jordan
Leg 3 Southeast Asia: Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand

The return ticket still hasn't been finalized--I have two on hold. Because I am buying it with airline miles I couldn't exactly get out on the days I wanted. So the debate is between ZRH (Zurich) on August 2nd or CDG (Paris) on August 18th. Both are a little later than I planned on returning, but if I am careful, the money should hold out.

So there we have it. That's the final outcome of all the brainstorming. Some of the only things I had planned got bumped out, and some things I thought I would never see got thrown in. Overall, though, I am happy. And excited.

Also! If you are going to be in any of those areas, let me know! OK, 11 days till take off!