Epilogue I:
On Saturday morning when we entered Old Santiago I was fighting a sinus infection; by late Saturday afternoon I´d lost a major battle. That evening Julia, our hospitaliera, pointed us towards a restaurant called Manolo´s, a hangout for those pilgrims - though I guess technically we weren´t really pilgrims anymore, since we´d graduated from the Camnio and received our compostelas - who were still jonesing for our 9.50 euro pilgrim meal, and Manolo´s was the only place in Santiago that still served a pilgrim meal,in fact that´s all Manolo serves, so at Manolo´s it´s a 9.50 three-course pilgrim meal or nada. But I was feeling so sick that I could only force down a few spoonfuls of my first course, lentil soup (Tom had the salad) and just pushed my second course, a salad, around on my plate while Tom tried to eat his mounds of steak and fries in misery from watching me be miserable. After his second course Tom galantly insisted that we leave (without dessert!) and after he´d paid our waitress she realized that we hadn´t had our dessert, and I was afraid we were about to cause an international incident from trying top leave before eating our dessert! Our waitrerss had to call someone else over (maybe it was Manolo himself!) to figure what to do about a case of pilgrims who paid for,but wouldn´t eat, their dessert. The other staff gathered around, even the pilgrim customers were trying to figure what thje fuss was about, and I felt as if I were before the Spanish Inquisition: first I didn´t eat any of my dinner, now I didn´t want the dessert, what was wrong? Didn´t like the food? I assured them that their food was "muy rico" (delicious), but I was sick and needed to go to bed. Their frowns changed to sympathetic smiles and we were allowed to leave without the Guardia Civil being called to arrest us for failure to clean our plates! (All right, a bit of creative hyperbole there, but that´s more or less how it went down!). So we went back to Julia´s pension, I fell into bed, and, amazingly, by the time I woke up the next morning I´d made a miraculous recovery, feeling about 85% better and ready to take on a toasted baquette and some tea, after which I was up to a good 90%. It was Sunday, so we went to the noon pilgrim mass at the Cathedral de Santiago where we got to see the swinging of the Botafumeiro,the giant incense burner that normally hangs above the altar area by a thick rope attached to a pulley in the ceiling. I took six attendants to maneuver the incense burner down from the ceiling then push it with enough propulsion to get it swinging high above the congregation, from ceiling to ceiling, filling the cathedral with incense. It was an amazing sight! High up at the top of a ledge close to the ceiling were about a dozen statues of angels holding hoses which also emitted incense. The original purpose of the Botafumeiro was to fumigate the sweaty, stinky, unwashed pilgrims in their sweaty, stinky, unwashed clothes. Bernard, the retired Marseillais policeman with whom we shared dinner one evening naughtily said that the Botafumeiro was filled with hashish. After mass we spent the afternoon strolling the narrow streets of lovely Old Santiago, trolling the pastry shops, and eating celebratory Cornettos in the pretty park. I´d actually already indulged in a pre-celebratory Cornetto earlier, one afternoon in the town of Molinaseca (the moment just seemed right!), but this Cornetto, eaten in the park in Santiago, knowing we´d made it, tasted even more delicious! Now and again throughout the afternoon we ran into fellow pilgrims whom we recognized form the Camino, and we´d exchange congratulations, but a couple of times we met up with pilgrims whom we´d buddy-bonded with along the way then drifted apart from and sometimes wondered about, , and seeing them here, knowing they´d made it, having them tell us that they´d been thinking about us, too, those were sunbursts of joy in an already happy day. This morning when we woke up it finally hit me: It´s over. We´re really leaving. As we hustled our gear together the same as we did all those other mornings I could hardly believe that our stay in Santiago wasn´t just another rest day like the ones we´d taken in those other beautiful Spanish cities, Pamplona and Leon, and that we wouldn´t be heading back out onto the Camino. As we walked to the train station,still looking and feeling like pilgrims with our backpacks and sticks, we both felt bittersweet, me especially while standing for a moment at a street crossing waiting for the little green running man to tell us it was time to cross. I still love that little running man. But the Santiago train station was alive with pilgrims and the floor of the train station cafeteria where we went for breakfast was piled with backpacks and the tables crowded with pilgrims, still cheerful, lively, chatting, hanging together same as always, and I felt that good old warm Camino feeling. We had a wonderful breakfast´- tortilla sandwiches on warm, soft baguettes, cream pastries (of course!), OJ and coffee for Tom, tea for me, all served up with speed-of-light efficiency. We share a table with a Canadian woman who looked to have a few years on us, and who bubbled over with her plans to come back and do another Camino. That´s the spirit, thought I! Our train trip to Madrid was six hours, and how do I love the Spanish trains? Let me count the ways! First of all the seats are wider, roomier, and comfier than airplane seats, and great for napping. The aisles are wider than plane aisles, too, and you can walk up and down them all you want. Each car has a screen on the front wall shoing the time, temperature, and how fast the train is going at the moment. (Ours got up to 204 kms per hour!). The bathrooms are clean and bigger than plane bathrooms, they show free movies, and there´s a snack bar car with a screen and earphone outlets so you can continue watching your movie while you have your snack! So here we are in Madrid and settled into our hostal, the Bergantin Hostal off the Puerta Del Sol at the center of Madrid. Tomorrow we hope to see a bit of the city, whatever we can in our one day here. A wonderful day to you all! Love, Patti 8) PS - I´ll try to write one more time tomorrow, then we´ll be back home again!
On Saturday morning when we entered Old Santiago I was fighting a sinus infection; by late Saturday afternoon I´d lost a major battle. That evening Julia, our hospitaliera, pointed us towards a restaurant called Manolo´s, a hangout for those pilgrims - though I guess technically we weren´t really pilgrims anymore, since we´d graduated from the Camnio and received our compostelas - who were still jonesing for our 9.50 euro pilgrim meal, and Manolo´s was the only place in Santiago that still served a pilgrim meal,in fact that´s all Manolo serves, so at Manolo´s it´s a 9.50 three-course pilgrim meal or nada. But I was feeling so sick that I could only force down a few spoonfuls of my first course, lentil soup (Tom had the salad) and just pushed my second course, a salad, around on my plate while Tom tried to eat his mounds of steak and fries in misery from watching me be miserable. After his second course Tom galantly insisted that we leave (without dessert!) and after he´d paid our waitress she realized that we hadn´t had our dessert, and I was afraid we were about to cause an international incident from trying top leave before eating our dessert! Our waitrerss had to call someone else over (maybe it was Manolo himself!) to figure what to do about a case of pilgrims who paid for,but wouldn´t eat, their dessert. The other staff gathered around, even the pilgrim customers were trying to figure what thje fuss was about, and I felt as if I were before the Spanish Inquisition: first I didn´t eat any of my dinner, now I didn´t want the dessert, what was wrong? Didn´t like the food? I assured them that their food was "muy rico" (delicious), but I was sick and needed to go to bed. Their frowns changed to sympathetic smiles and we were allowed to leave without the Guardia Civil being called to arrest us for failure to clean our plates! (All right, a bit of creative hyperbole there, but that´s more or less how it went down!). So we went back to Julia´s pension, I fell into bed, and, amazingly, by the time I woke up the next morning I´d made a miraculous recovery, feeling about 85% better and ready to take on a toasted baquette and some tea, after which I was up to a good 90%. It was Sunday, so we went to the noon pilgrim mass at the Cathedral de Santiago where we got to see the swinging of the Botafumeiro,the giant incense burner that normally hangs above the altar area by a thick rope attached to a pulley in the ceiling. I took six attendants to maneuver the incense burner down from the ceiling then push it with enough propulsion to get it swinging high above the congregation, from ceiling to ceiling, filling the cathedral with incense. It was an amazing sight! High up at the top of a ledge close to the ceiling were about a dozen statues of angels holding hoses which also emitted incense. The original purpose of the Botafumeiro was to fumigate the sweaty, stinky, unwashed pilgrims in their sweaty, stinky, unwashed clothes. Bernard, the retired Marseillais policeman with whom we shared dinner one evening naughtily said that the Botafumeiro was filled with hashish. After mass we spent the afternoon strolling the narrow streets of lovely Old Santiago, trolling the pastry shops, and eating celebratory Cornettos in the pretty park. I´d actually already indulged in a pre-celebratory Cornetto earlier, one afternoon in the town of Molinaseca (the moment just seemed right!), but this Cornetto, eaten in the park in Santiago, knowing we´d made it, tasted even more delicious! Now and again throughout the afternoon we ran into fellow pilgrims whom we recognized form the Camino, and we´d exchange congratulations, but a couple of times we met up with pilgrims whom we´d buddy-bonded with along the way then drifted apart from and sometimes wondered about, , and seeing them here, knowing they´d made it, having them tell us that they´d been thinking about us, too, those were sunbursts of joy in an already happy day. This morning when we woke up it finally hit me: It´s over. We´re really leaving. As we hustled our gear together the same as we did all those other mornings I could hardly believe that our stay in Santiago wasn´t just another rest day like the ones we´d taken in those other beautiful Spanish cities, Pamplona and Leon, and that we wouldn´t be heading back out onto the Camino. As we walked to the train station,still looking and feeling like pilgrims with our backpacks and sticks, we both felt bittersweet, me especially while standing for a moment at a street crossing waiting for the little green running man to tell us it was time to cross. I still love that little running man. But the Santiago train station was alive with pilgrims and the floor of the train station cafeteria where we went for breakfast was piled with backpacks and the tables crowded with pilgrims, still cheerful, lively, chatting, hanging together same as always, and I felt that good old warm Camino feeling. We had a wonderful breakfast´- tortilla sandwiches on warm, soft baguettes, cream pastries (of course!), OJ and coffee for Tom, tea for me, all served up with speed-of-light efficiency. We share a table with a Canadian woman who looked to have a few years on us, and who bubbled over with her plans to come back and do another Camino. That´s the spirit, thought I! Our train trip to Madrid was six hours, and how do I love the Spanish trains? Let me count the ways! First of all the seats are wider, roomier, and comfier than airplane seats, and great for napping. The aisles are wider than plane aisles, too, and you can walk up and down them all you want. Each car has a screen on the front wall shoing the time, temperature, and how fast the train is going at the moment. (Ours got up to 204 kms per hour!). The bathrooms are clean and bigger than plane bathrooms, they show free movies, and there´s a snack bar car with a screen and earphone outlets so you can continue watching your movie while you have your snack! So here we are in Madrid and settled into our hostal, the Bergantin Hostal off the Puerta Del Sol at the center of Madrid. Tomorrow we hope to see a bit of the city, whatever we can in our one day here. A wonderful day to you all! Love, Patti 8) PS - I´ll try to write one more time tomorrow, then we´ll be back home again!
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