Some thoughts on weather

Well, it's not tomorrow yet, but I thought a couple of observations about weather would put the next weeks' conditions into perspective.
First, we went over there in "late spring", thinking that we were heading into Texas springtime. I packed one windbreaker, 1 light sweater, a turtleneck long underwear shirt (silk--very light), and a blouse and some shirts. A pair of leggings, a couple of pairs of hiking pants. In Texas springtime weather this would have been fine--even overkill.
Oops.
Southern France and northern Spain in May don't even vaguely resemble Texas in the springtime. It is cold! If you are thinking of going at this time of the year, you should think of it as going to the northern third of the US for temperatures and weather. Take a fleece shirt!

I also found a couple more pictures of St. Jean to post:
The church interior

St. John over the gateway, with his shepherd's staff and the Lamb he pointed out to his disciples.

Arriving in St Jean (French Atlantic Pyrennees region)

Hello, everyone.
We arrived in Biarritz and took a taxi to St. Jean. I was surprised at the number of tiny roads we passed over. The scenery was lovely, but the taxi was really moving so I didn't try to take pictures of the French villages we passed.
Today I will put up some more pictures, of the St. Jean Pied de Port village in France this time. St. Jean is at the foot of the pass through the Pyrennees. We stayed at a pension that night and left early the next morning, after a bowl of milky coffee and some bread and yogurt.

As you can see, the village is very pretty and picturesque. The Camino pilgrims seem to be a large part of the economy of the village, but it is also in a big ham producing area--Jamon de pays, I think they call it.
And this is the last day the Aggie bag was used, until we reached Santiago. In the interim the bag sat at the bottom of the pack, waiting until is would be needed to hold packages or cameras once again.
Tomorrow I will begin to put up pictures of our actual walk, beginning with the Route Napoleon.

First reflections

I'm still organizing the photos, so I'll just put up a little bit today.
First, there are some things we take for granted in the US that are completely unheard-of in Spain. Like Bufferin. And Pepto-Bismol. And stick anti-perspirant.
Second, I already miss the Spanish wines.

As a first taste of the pictures to come, I will put up this one, taken while walking through the Dublin airport. (We flew to Dublin on United. Then we claimed our packs and switched over to Rynair to fly to Biarritz, France.)

This lovely garden was below the window of the crossing hallway.

The shops in Dublin airport have never heard of Pepto-Bismol either, on a day when my stash of the little pink chewables was already securely checked-luggage inside my pack. :-(
Our flight on Ryanair was uneventful; the airport at Biarritz is intimate and easy to navigate, even for people who have no French.
We had been going to stay a day in Bayonne (2 miles away) and start walking after that rest day, but in the first of many serendipity moments, we encountered another pilgrim and shared a taxi ride with her to St. Jean. Then we found a pension room, picked up our shells and a handout about the Route Napoleon, and went to bed. It had been a very long day.

Progress report: Madrid

Hello, everyone!
We are in Madrid for a few days, before flying home in a day or two. We went to Salamanca to see the university town and that was neat.
I only have a couple of minutes left on this rental computer session, so that´s all I´m going to say. We will begin to do pictures next week with more info on the trip.

WE MADE IT!!

We walked into Santiago on Saturday, 21 June, about noon. (There is about a mile or a mile and a half of Santiago to walk through before you get to the historic center area.)
We found a place to stay, a lovely little apartment on a tiny street next to the ring road around the old city. And then we walked over to the Pilgrim Office to register our Credenciales for the Compostela certificate. We saw familiar faces there, people who had walked into town earlier in the day, like the brave Japanese girl Enny, who is just a tiny thing, but she walked almost all of the Camino by herself. And we saw the American Pilgrims hospitalera from Carrion de los Condes, where she had been helping out the Augustinas for a couple of weeks. She is now on her second two weeks of helping, serving as the greeter at the door of the Pilgrim Office. Lovely lady.
After we had our Compostelas in hand, and safely encased in the cardboard tubes they sell for protection, we went to the Cathedral.
There is a Capilla de la Santissima there, so I stopped to give thanks. My sweetie took millions of pictures. We venerated the bones of the Apostle and touched the reliquary, too. (The famous statue in the Porta de Gloria is in a repair/remodeling zone, so we didn´t try to go to that one.)
And we had a glass of tinto and got bread, cheese, meat, and a bottle of wine to share for dinner in our apartment. Then we went back to lie down for a while.
Surprise! At 5:30 PM the city had a downpour! We rushed to close windows and said, "gosh, this reminds us of afternoon in Houston!"
Yesterday we went to the noon Pilgrim Mass at the cathedral. It was Corpus Christi. And Mass was absolutely transporting. Also, they swung the Botafumeiro, too! And I have never in my life seen so many people in church for Mass. All the little wooden pews were full. The transept pews, too. And all the side aisles were full of standers. We were standing, too--and we got there almost an hour early. My sweetie found us a corner right by the pillar next to the wooden barriers around the center reserved section. Wow. Just wow.
And yesterday there was another 5:30 PM rainstorm.
Last night, as we were settling down for the night, watching TV in the dark and dozing off, we heard a horrifically loud crash. Some fellow driving on the ring road had hit the retaining wall in his brand new white Land Rover "SUV" type car. He hit it hard; a 10 foot block of cement in the wall was knocked completely out and another one under or next to it also. (It looked like nobody was hurt.) So we stood there in the twilight of 10:30 or so PM, sipping the last of the wine and watching the traffic unfold.  The oolice made it there in about 15 minutes or so, before which everyone had had to negotiate a half blocked two lane busy road on a curve by themselves. "Everyone" included about 5 city buses.When the police car came, there were two men in it. One got out and began recording details. The other one got into his Dayglo yellow vest and started directing traffic. A couple of times he would stop the cars coming one way to let the other ones through, and the car he stopped would decide to go anyway. He went over to them and told them, with pointing, to get back up there. One of these idiots argued with him, and we saw him write down their plate number. I wonder what the fine is for "interfering with an officer directing traffic?"
I promise that when we get home and I can upload pictures from the chips, we will put pictures up. But right now, it is beyond my abilities to figure out!
We may go to Fisterra (Finisterre) tomorrow, on the bus(?) so we can enjoy it when we arrive there. I´m not sure when I´ll be able to post again.

Progress report:Palas dei Rey, Galicia, Spain

Hello, everyone!
We are in Palas dei Rey tonight. We´re staying in an albergue that overlooks the main plaza, where there is a girl-folk concert going on tonight. We can hear it from our window on the "2nd" floor. They have sung "Hit the Road, Jack", they have sung "(You can hear the whistle blow) 500 Miles", and they´re working through a lot of the stuff Dad used to play in coffeehouses in his undergrad years. He´s having flashbacks.
Today´s walk was a lot less difficult than yesterday´s was. The footing was much better, and the climbing was less. I don´t know which bothers me more, going down a steep slope or walking on a pile of rocks.
We had octopus and (Spanish) tortilla for dinner and it was good.
We got a stamp (sello) from the parish church on the way into town, it´s a lovely church, and Father was in the sacristy working on his stuff when we were there.
We have hopes of hitting Santiago on Saturday. That way we can attend the pilgrim noon Mass on Sunday for sure.
The trails and roads are a lot more crowded now, as about a million people joined the trail in Sarria. (Well, maybe a thousand or so--it must be school holidays, there are a lot of high school aged kids tromping down the road.) We have to pay more attention to settling down for the night around 2 pm; we saw a trio of girls yesterday that hit Porto la Marina about 6 pm and all the albergues were full and most of the hostales were full and they were having to go to a pension...which is a step up in expense I think. But this was all caused by a lack of research into the whole thing before they left--you can't assume that you can walk until 6 pm and get a bed. It´s entirely too problematic, especially if you are being spontaneous (like us) and don´t call ahead for reservations.....we have had no trouble at all finding a place to sleep.
This camino thing, my sweetie has taken to saying, is a lot like life. It´s hard sometimes, it´s easy other times, it´s painful sometimes, it's happy others, and one of the main things is that 80% of the game is showing up every morning and tackling the day. That applies as much to figuring out more walking techniques as to foot problems and weather and everything else.
And yes, even though you have been walking since you were one year old, the Camino will teach you that you need to learn things about how to walk.
I'd like to learn how to make the sepia Basque style (squid with garlic and I don´t know what else) that we had in Pamplona, and the pulpo (octopus with pimenton I think) that we had this evening here in Palas dei Rey. Both wonderful tasting dishes.
I don´t know if there will be internet tomorrow or not.
I will try to post again as soon as I can.

Progress report: Porto Marin, Galicia, Espana

Hello, everyone!
Today we are in Porto Marin, less than 100 km. from Santiago. (I would shout yay! but it was a really really hard day today, very unexpectedly, and so I will save shouting for later.)
We slep in San Mamede, about 5 km. short of Sarria, last night, at a really lovely albergue called Paloma and (something) which was very clean, very friendly, and run by a brother and a sister. They have a large, soft lawn and plenty of lawn chairs to warm your tired, aching feet in the sun. Also, the lentil-vegetable soup they make is to die for!
Yesterday was a long day, because we walked from Hospital de la Condesa to Mamede, around 20 miles, and the day before was also long, because we walked from Perejes and climbed to O Cebreiro, a long, steep climb on dirt goat trails and rocks that was in 3 stages, before we came part of the way back down the mountain and stopped in Hospital. O Cebreiro had 2 souvenir stores, at least one restaurant, and a government albergue, plus a church that I forgot to go into. (Hey, after all that walking with a backpack, my brains fall out the back of my feet and get lost!)
Back to today: Porto Marin is on a river/lake which is very pretty, and gives the loveliest breeze while you are walking across it into the city.
This lovelieness followed a long slog of climbing up and down hills, often on goat tracks, sometimes on rocky meses, and a lot of the time on cow pats. (Come to think of it, cow pats have been the single commonest surface of the path since we entered the province of Galicia. Ugh.)
I don´t know if internet will be available tomorrow, but that´s the short scoop for the last three days.