I see London, I see France...

Brushing your teeth with someone is an intimate experience.  Usually you're married to the person, you're best friends, or you're dating. Tonight I brushed my teeth with a lady who doesn't speak much English.  I don't know where she's from because when I was going to ask her, she had a mouth full of foam.  She didn't say anything to me because after she spit the foam out, I was flossing my molars.  As I flossed, she put a heavy cream on her face, smiled at me, and left the bathroom.  While I finished up with the floss, a German guy who was maybe in his 60's walked in and began to brush.  We stood there, comrades in personal hygiene. He said nothing when I pulled out my zit cream, and I said nothing when he picked his nose with toilet paper.  

I have experienced more intimate, personal things with these "strangers" than I have with some of my closest friends and family members.  I can't even remember the last time I saw my dad brush his teeth (I promise he does, though!).  The other morning there were seven middle-aged French men in nothing but their tighty-whities walking around the room.  The scariest part was that I didn't even really notice...

 

This morning when I was stretching and yawning, trying to convince myself to sit up, I rolled over and came face to face with a 70 year old Spanish gentleman who had his chin on my mattress, waiting for me to notice he was there.  "Está lloviendo," he told me with a grin.  I knew it was raining, because my face was right next to the open window and I had also looked at the weather the night before, but he was so excited to talk to me that I couldn't help but smile back.  We had had a conversation the night before about his previous hiking experiences in the rain and this week's rainy forecast.  He patted me on the cheek and headed off to the bathroom with his toothbrush, wearing absolutely nothing but his underpants.

K

Boadilla del Camino, Spain

You are the way

We arrive to San Juan de Ortega just in time-- I don't think my body could have carried me another step.  This kind of exhaustion is still completely unfamiliar to me.  I hate it, but I love it.

I have felt many different kinds of fatigue.  The absolute physical exhaustion after playing three ninety-minute soccer matches in one day is exhilarating, especially after winning.  I remember that the feeling of relief when I took off my cleats and sat down to stretch was pure bliss and felt well-earned.  The mental exhaustion of writing a twenty-page paper in another language always left me a little hazy, sometimes to the point of not being able to string together a full sentence in either language.  I always felt so proud of myself.  I would sit back with a sigh, re-count the page numbers, and click the save button about eight more times, just in case.  With only about 5% brain function remaining, I would shut my laptop, promising myself that I would proofread it tomorrow even though I always knew I wouldn't.  The emotional exhaustion of depression used to consume me entirely, rendering me unable to operate normally in society.  I was so worn out that I couldn't feel any emotions at all.  Love, joy, angst, misery... I felt nothing.  

I guess the closest I can come to describing the exhaustion I feel now is is how you would feel after crying for an hour.  Not just a few tears, but those shoulder-shaking, soul-wrenching sob sessions that make you sleepy for two days and leave your eyes burning and red.  When you're done crying, you feel relieved but still haunted by what induced the tears to begin with.  Then add the searing blister pains, muscle cramps, sunburn, and overall got-hit-by-a-semi-truck feeling.  That is the exhaustion of the Camino.  It leaves me with a combination of all of the symptoms I described earlier,and then some.  Pride, exhilaration, numbness, shame, awe... 

Emily and I have likened the Camino to a lifetime playing out in the time it takes you to walk 800 kilometers.  Every day, you feel the emotions you would normally feel in a month's time.  You are forced to face demons you didn't know still existed within you, you feel things you haven't felt in years, and you have hour after hour after hour of walking into the distance to think about it.

The ups and downs, the fellowship, the diversity of people, the honesty, the struggles and successes, they all represent your life.  The pack you carry is the weight of your material belongings and your emotional baggage, and the kilometers represent the milestones you've reached.  You have nothing but your own two feet propelling you forward.  You are the vehicle in which you must traverse life.  Someone might offer to carry your pack for a few kilometers if you can't, but ultimately you must carry it yourself.  Others will be there to help and guide you as best they can, but it is your Camino.  You ARE the way.

The blisters are my imperfections that I can only heal and learn how to deal with.  My scars are my past, and without them I would be full of gaping wounds.  The exhaustion is, well, exhausting, but it's a sign that I'm alive and living as much as I possibly can.  It's what makes me fall sound asleep every night to be able to wake up so I can do it all over again.

I feel more like myself right now than I have ever felt in my life.

K

San Juan de Ortega, Spain

Logroooooooño

In Pamplona, I felt a little guilty putting the Camino on pause, like maybe I was cheating the Way or avoiding something I was supposed to be doing.  Now I understand a bit better what it's all about.  My foot was infected-- why the hell would I have expected myself to walk on it?  I would have told anyone else to take a break, so why would I not give myself the same TLC and understanding that I give others?  Plus, Pamplona is a kick-ass city that I could see myself returning to live in someday.  If we hadn't stopped, we would not have met Lori and Suzanne.  We would not have stopped in the little town of Zirauki, and even if we had it would have been days before their festival.  Everything happens for a reason!

So this time around, I didn't feel guilty about stopping to enjoy Logroño.  I'm walking across Spain-- I deserve to enjoy the places I stay! The Camino is meant to make you live in the moment, because while you're here there is nothing but right now.  And living in the moment in Logroño meant taking care of our feet... and eating tapas and drinking damn good wine.

For those of you who haven't been to Spain, tapas are a truly glorious experience.  I don't think I stopped grinning for the entire time we wandered around Calle Laurel, the famous tapas street.  I'll be honest... at first I had no idea how to "do" tapas.  Luckily, we ran into the Spaniards from Santander who were at our hostel.  In typical Kelly fashion, I bluntly stated that I was clueless and could they please show me how to proceed now that we were on the correct street.  It ended up being a simple pay-as-you-go system where you order drinks and one of the numerous delicious concoctions on display on the bar.  (Apparently in some cities, you get free tapas with every drink you order!)  They heat up the tapas, you pay, and then you take your mouthwatering delicacies to a table and enjoy.  The pacing last night was such that by the time you got the food, you were already halfway done with your glass of wine.  Perfect!  Each tapa consists of about four bites of pure bliss.  We ate a crostini with goat cheese, orange marmalade, and walnuts, a mini chorizo burger, garlic sautéed mushrooms with mini shrimp, bull tail "brisket," and steak and mashed potatoes wrapped in a tortilla.  I also ate another goat cheese crostini from another bar that had raspberry preserves, candied walnuts, and sunflower seeds because, well, why wouldn't I?  The wine was perfect, the tapas nearly made me dance with delight, the Spanish guys were hilarious, and I was with my best friend in Spain.  Talk about living in the moment!

When we arrived at our destination for today, we found Elona sitting at a cafe!  It had been more than a week since we last saw her, but she has been taking her time and also spent a few days in Logroño.  It was like seeing a long-lost friend after many years, and with a jolt I realized just how much these new friends, my new family, mean to me.  Everything happens for a reason, and our timing was impeccable.  Had we dawdled just five minutes longer in the park watching ducks, or had we decided to stay at the first albergue we looked at, we would have missed her.  I'm not sure how or why, but our paths were meant to cross again and I have a feeling we'll be seeing her again very soon.

K

Navarrete, La Rioja, Spain

Remember when I said all dignity had been lost?

Well I found some more that was hiding...

and promptly lost that, too. 

What day is it?

Time has ceased to matter.  The days blend together and I don't remember what happened on which day.  There was one day that we walked through a field of grasshoppers and I was sure they were going to leave welts on my legs there were so many of them bouncing around.  Did you know they're cannibals?  Many of them had been squished by cars or pilgrims, and... well, you get it.  Once we were stopped by a group of mountain bikers who asked us to take their photo by a waterfall, so we had them take one of us, too.  I tripped and had to put my foot in the river while walking out to the waterfall,  but it actually felt pretty good in the heat.  While we posed for the photo, we realized that they could steal our stuff and run away if they had wanted to.  Oops.  There was the time that we arrived at our destination at 12h45 and at 13h the town's yearly week-long festival began with fireworks and the church bells right above our heads clanging incessantly for a good five minutes.  A group of little boys ran up to the fountain we were sitting by, put a firework in it, and sprinted away just as water exploded out of the fountain.  The entire town was dressed in white with red accents in celebration.  

A typical day on the Camino goes something like this:

Someone's alarm clock goes off around 6am and you can hear the collective groaning of the fifty or so people in the room.  I push my earplugs in tighter and roll over, the bed creaking incessantly as I do so.  I wonder if the person in the bunk below me has gotten any sleep with my tossing and turning.  Someone turns the lights on at 6:30 (or 6:25 if they're being impatient) and I wake up again.  At this point I lay in my bed and watch the commotion of people trying to repack their bags, bandage up their feet, and get everything sorted for the day.  I love people-watching and hate waking up, so this just seems like the natural thing to do.  I lounge in my bed until 6:40 or so, stretching and making funny faces at Emily, before I finally get out of my sleeping bag.  Usually I plop down on the floor and pretend to sort things (even though they were never unsorted, because everything I have with me is in a bag of some kind inside my pack) while really just leaning against the bedpost and trying to wake up.

Once our bags are packed and we're ready to go, we sit down for a small breakfast.  Today, for example, it consisted of one hard boiled egg and an apple.  This leaves me very cranky, because I now refuse to drink vending machine coffee after a few bad experiences but need the caffeine, and one egg and an apple is not enough of a breakfast for me.  We leave the albergue around 7:30 or so, depending on how much we dawdle, and this typically puts us in the last third of the pack.  After a kilometer or so, we're warmed up and have a pretty decent pace.  We might chat with others, we might walk alone.  Within the first two hours, we usually find a restaurant with a good espresso machine and plop down for what I consider a real breakfast: coffee.  Today I had cafe con leche (espresso with milk), a yogurt, and a croissant.  Oh, and I also bought some plums and a banana.  I am now a very happy, well-fed pilgrim with a few extra snacks to eat along the way.

We resume walking, my socks getting progressively filthier because I am wearing sandals with them.  (Remember, all dignity has already been lost.)  We stop every once in awhile, but it's less frequent now than it was a week ago.  We've gotten pretty good at getting to the essentials without stopping, and my bladder seems to have expanded a bit.  We might stop to have a picnic of baguette, chorizo or canned tuna, and cheese, or we might keep walking until we get to the town for the day and have lunch then.  We usually arrive anywhere from 1:30 to 3:30, at which point we proudly hand over our pilgrim passports to have them stamped, pay the six euros for a bed, and start unwinding for the afternoon.  What happens after that varies day to day, but typically includes a shower, washing our clothes by hand, and reading or journaling for a bit.  Today we sat under a tree and shared a bottle of wine with these two Canadian gals who have been friends for the same number of years that Emily and I have, but who are more than twice our age. 

Of course, strange things always happen along the way, and if something can go wrong, it will inevitably go wrong for me.  Today, for example, I went to pick a few wild blackberries and ended up with tiny thorns in my legs.  Blisters, a sore Achille's, bruises, scrapes, allergies... apparently I'm a recipe for disaster.  But so many amazing, random things have happened as well.  During the festival that we found ourselves at a few days ago, I got pulled into the middle of the drunken dancing circle to help the guy with the microphone demonstrate this goofy dance the whole town was doing and ended up dancing in a circle with my finger in his belly button.  Good thing I speak Spanish, or who knows where I could have put my hand... Today we happened upon a guy with a donkey who didn't want to walk anymore, so I sang to him and told him what a handsome donkey he was in Spanish (he was a Spanish donkey with a Hungarian owner, so perhaps he was just feeling homesick) and he seemed to like that a bit.  Every time something random like this happens, I have to pinch myself to remember that this is real.  I keep saying that I'm avoiding "real life" by traveling, but perhaps this IS my real life.

I really hope it is.

K

Viana, Spain

Perma-purple tongue

This morning we woke up around the same time as the other pilgrims left.  As we made our way downstairs to have breakfast, I tried to count the bottles of wine we drank last night.  I think between five of us, we drank four bottles.  Not bad.

We are now steadily climbing into the mountains yet again.  The blister on my right heel is throbbing and my Achilles' tendon is sore, probably because I walked on tip-toes for 16 kilometers on Monday.  Shit.  Emily has her headphones in, but I have decided to do the Camino earbud-free.  It's time to face myself and stop ignoring the noise in my head.  A couple with grey hair passes us.  Damnit.  Why didn't I train for this?  A man who looks to be about 65 passes us, wheezing, "Buen camino!"  I grudgingly reply, but I'm really angry now.  I have the stamina, strength, and drive!  Why can't I just fucking walk?!  Another middle-aged couple breezes past.  "Buen camino!"  I keep my head down, ashamed for not having the decency to respond.  Angry tears well up in my eyes, threatening to fall for the second time this week, which is already more than I've cried in the last year.  I yank off my bag, sit on the side of the path and start untying my shoe while tears silently stream down my face.  Emily puts her bag on the path and tells me to put my foot on it so my leg stops shaking.  She's so thoughtful and selfless.  I switch back to my Chacos sandals, blow my nose, and get up.  "I swear, I was only crying to relieve the sinus pressure," I tell Emily with a grin.  She smiles and puts her earbuds back in and we fall into a slow but rhythmic pace.  

I miss Elona, the Danish lady who danced at the snack stand at the top of the mountain 5 kilometers from Zubiri.  We crisscrossed paths with her all afternoon on day 2 and she slept in the bunk above me at Trinidad de Arre.  I also miss Sylvia from Brazil and her no-nonsense attitude.  She made our elderly friend Nick drink a coke and eat a banana at the snack stand where Elona was dancing and stayed up chatting with us by candlelight where the monks bandaged my foot.  I miss Susan and Hildy, the two feisty baby-boomers we ate dinner with after surviving the hailstorm on our first day.  "I'm embarrassed that I let this happen," I told Susan one night, referencing my blisters.  She took my face in her hands, looked me dead in the eye and said, "You get rid of that thought right now.  It happened, now you just need to take care of yourself.  You have absolutely no reason to be embarrassed."  I tried to let it go then, but today it is sizzling at the front of my mind, scorching any remaining positivity.  I miss Dorothy and Toto, our friends from Kansas who brought the guitelele, a hybrid between a guitar and a ukelele.  At breakfast in Zubiri, Dorothy said that Toto and Nikko could take turns carrying my pack and he would carry me to Pamplona.  Emily could be with the "original" group right now if it weren't for me.  Hell, I could be with them too!  I can't get them out of my head.  There's something about having started with them and sharing crucial moments together.  I wonder if they miss us, too.

One kilometer to go.  I can see the town in the distance.  I contemplate walking the other seven kilometers to Puente la Reina, to try to close the gap between us and our friends, but with my leg shaking with every step I take, I don't think it's even possible.  I have to listen to my body.  

We arrive just in time to get beds at the albergue and I go straight to take a nap in the hopes of easing a bit of the self-loathing that seems to be the theme for this day.  

End rant.  Tomorrow is a new day.  

K

Uterga, Spain

Running with the bulls... or not.

I woke up in Zubiri on Monday morning and felt like I had been hit by a semi-truck that threw me into the path of an oncoming train.  I guess sleeping on the cement floor will do that to you.  But hey... at least we had a roof over our heads and somewhere to shower.  Everything happens for a reason.  Everything happens for a reason.  Everything happens for a reason.

I'm still trying to find the reason for these damn blisters that have landed me in Pamplona for a few days to rest.  I walked on my tip toes for about 16 kilometers on Monday and slept at Trinidad de Arre, an ancient church and hospital that has been a pilgrims' albergue for over 1,000 years.  There are three retired monks who run it, and one of them bandaged my foot by candlelight when the power went out.  He assured me that one of my blisters was infected and that I had to go to the doctor the next day.

Yesterday Emily and I spent the first part of the afternoon at the doctor, where it was deemed that my blister was indeed infected and that I couldn't walk again until Thursday or later.  I had saved the left foot from infection because I had threaded that blister with a needle and thread, allowing it to stay open and begin to heal.  I'm kicking myself for not doing it to the right foot as well.  The blister is so deep that I cannot put any pressure on the heel when I walk.  

Everything happens for a reason.  Being stuck in Pamplona is wonderful!  I love the Camino and the people we have met so far, but I'm grateful for having the chance to explore this beautiful city.  Emily and I both love the old, winding streets with the colorful buildings and their beautiful balconies.  Last night, Hugo from Quebec cooked for us and tonight I made omelets.  It has been a necessary break from the Camino, but I'm anxious to start walking again.

Time for more wine.

K

Pamplona, Spain

Guardian angels

When I woke up this morning, I felt like a pile of cow shit.  Not horse shit or sheep shit, but a big, fat, cowpie.  The Spanish guys in the bunk next to us were so jovial and energetic that I wanted to punch them in the face.  If they hadn't been so damn gorgeous, I might have.  They were starting the Camino today by bicycle, and between trying to flirt with us and guzzling protein shakes were chattering excitedly about the ride.  Idiots.

It was a brisk 50 degrees or so and pouring rain for the first few hours of our walk and I was trying desperately to think positively.  "Well, at least we're getting the shitty weather out of the way the first few days," I told Emily.  "It seriously can only get better from here!"  She halfheartedly agreed with me and by the time the rain stopped and the sun peeked through the clouds we found ourselves in a cute little town where we bought bread, cheese, and chorizo for five euros.  Score!  Our pace quickened and before we knew it we were in a town about halfway to Zubiri, our destination for the day.  

A kilometer or so later, we ran into a man who was panting heavily and having a difficult time making it up some of the hills.  A group of Spanish women took his pack (they were having their bags transported for them and delivered to their next albergue) so he could walk easier and I climbed the hill at his pace to make sure he made it to the top.

There wasn't a top.  There was kilometer after kilometer of hilly landscape to traverse, and Emily and I fell into his pace, trailing him to make sure he was alright.  Since his pack was gone, he had no water; this only strengthened our resolve to stick with him and we spent the rest of the afternoon going at the pace of our 73-year-old friend Nick.  He was a retired urologist from California with a wife and three grown children.  We didn't get much more than that out of him because he was having a hard time speaking as he walked.  Emily and I mostly just hung back and goofed around taking photos and singing weird songs, and I found myself increasingly grateful for our pace because my blisters were becoming so uncomfortable I could hardly walk.  Elona, a gal from Denmark we had been on pace with all day, told us that Nick was lucky to have two guardian angels adopt him.

Maybe it was the other way around.  

I really do think that everything happens for a reason, so when we were given sleeping space on a cement gym floor because every bed in town was occupied, we tried to stay positive.  We had arrived about four hours later than expected and it would have been easy to blame our predicament on being too nice; instead, we looked at it as a valid reason to drink a lot of wine.  We found a bottle for less than three euros and enjoyed a hearty dinner of baguette, chorizo, and cheese from the comfort of the cement floor with our friend Nikko, who taught us to slice off the top half of a plastic water bottle to use as a cup for wine.  I think all remaining dignity was lost when we starting hanging our underwear on a line next to perfect strangers' underwear, so this actually seemed pretty classy.

After an evening filled with music, laughter, and drinking cheap red wine from an old powerade bottle, I think we're ready to attempt to sleep on the cement floor.  God, this is going to suck.

K

Zubiri, Spain

Albergue: This could be a hostel, a municipal albergue with hundreds of beds, a bed and breakfast, etc.  

Day one

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

It really is holy, too... Tonight I'm sleeping in an ancient monastery with 100 people in one room.  There are 50 bunk beds in the old hospital part of the monastery, and each row has two bunks shoved next to each other with a gap in between just large enough to walk through.  This means that because Emily is sleeping above me, there is a person in the bed next to me who I could literally be spooning with at any moment.  She speaks Afrikaans and has just informed me that she talks a lot in her sleep.

Today was one of the best days of my life, and it was also one of the worst.  I'm having trouble deciding which is the stronger sentiment, although right now I'm leaning towards worst because of my chattering teeth.  I am not prepared for this journey.  The day started out all sunshine and daisies-- literally.  Sure, walking uphill for hours on end was a bit difficult, but Emily and I were goofing around, chatting with new friends and taking photos of everything.  The French countryside was stunning and I was with my best friend for the first time in almost a year.

It started to get eerie when the walkers thinned out as more and more people passed us.  It was a cloudy day, and we were so high into the mountains (1,000 meters or so) that the fog was dense around us and we could only see a few meters in any direction.  We could hear cowbells in the distance, but could not see who or what they belonged to.  I learned how to tell the difference between cow shit, sheep shit, and horse shit... you never know; it might come in handy someday.  We would hear the cowbells for ages before a random animal would pop out of the mist.  Our eyelashes and hair were covered in clouds and we struggled to see the pathway.

It started to rain somewhere around the French/Spanish border.  We stopped and put the rain covers on our backpacks, still goofing around.  It started to rain a bit harder; we put our raincoats on.  Puddles started to form, lightning flashed, and thunder boomed in the distance.  We fell silent and slogged along.  The thunder got closer, the rain fell heavier, and the lightning was more frequent.  We passed a hut and decided to keep trekking.

One kilometer further, we were nearly stampeded by a flock of sheep running down the mountain.  I think I started laughing hysterically at this point because Emily pointed out that the sheep were running away from the peak of the mountain and we were approaching it.  The storm was now directly above us; lightning, thunder, hail, flash floods... Fuck.  Every ounce of my heart was saying, Keep going!  If you just make it to Roncesvalles, you will be safe and you'll have a hot shower!  My brain countered with, Turn back.  Go downhill, get into the hut and out of the storm. Wait it out.  Emily and I weighed our options from the cover of the forest and decided to go with our own instincts instead of the flock's.  

This is how we found ourselves on the 1,450 meter peak of a mountain in the middle of a hailstorm.  I was pretty sure this was the exact manner and location of Emilio Esteves' death in the movie The Way, but I tried not to think about it.  We started the descent and waded through the mudslides for another hour and a half, singing every song that we both know the words to, mainly Grease and Disney.  After 29 kilometers we eventually made it to the monastery where I have never been more grateful for shelter in my life.

My legs ache, my body aches, I have a blister on each foot, and my sleeping bag is wet because my rain cover failed miserably.  It turns out my raincoat is not hail-proof, either.  The room is already echoing with snores and I'm pretty sure the lady next to me is going to roll onto my bed any minute at the rate she is thrashing around.  Oh, did you read the part about the lightning and the hail and flash floods on the top of a mountain?  So, let me end by saying... 

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

K

Roncesvalles, Spain

I found myself in paradise

You know those moments when you close your eyes, open them, then close them again and attempt to convince yourself that you're not dreaming?

I had that moment this morning when I went for a walk to the market with my CouchSurfing host, Julien, and we ended up at this amazing beach.  There were close to a hundred surfers on the beach and in the water, and off in the distance you could see the mountains of San Sebastián, Spain.  I was in awe, on top of the high I was already experiencing from eating a fresh-from-the-oven croissant and a delicious, juicy peach.  I mean, look at this:

I felt so alive, sitting there with Spain in the distance and the salty breeze on my face.  I kept thinking to myself, How lucky can I possibly be?  I had an incredibly kind host who not only picked me up from the airport in Biarritz, but also fed me when we got to his flat.  I got to sing karaoke in a French bar, wade into the ocean in the moonlight, and talk about traveling with fellow travelers.  This morning I fell in love with the town by daylight and now I am waiting at the train station for my best friend who will be here at any moment.  I haven't seen her since October.  Can life get any better than this?

There are six of us lined up here on the steps at the train station, all waiting for the train to St. Jean Pied de Port.  Red, green, black, blue, yellow... we all have different backpacks, but we are all the same.  I'm surprised at how calm I feel, considering the journey we begin tomorrow.  I'm not really even sure what my journey is or where it's taking me.  I am vulnerable right now, surrounded by people I don't really know, although somehow we all know each other intimately.  It is liberating, and I feel completely at ease with these strangers who will become my family tomorrow.

K

Bayonne, France

Platform 9 3/4

Some people think I'm crazy when I say I am going to walk 800 kilometers to Santiago de Compostela, and others think it's a pretty cool undertaking.  Abhinav was inspired, which was my first clue that we had something in common.  We parted ways after the CouchSurfing meetup agreeing to meet at Kings Cross the next day to go find platform 9 3/4.

It was incredible to spend the day in London with a likeminded traveler.  Stop when you feel like stopping, observe when something is interesting, sit down and watch the world pass by when you feel like being still.  So many tourists think that you have to rush around and see every single thing that a city has to offer!  Sitting in Trafalgar Square at the base of a monument was so tranquil, and the more I talked to Abs the more we turned out to have in common.  It was one of those rare "kindred spirits" encounters.  We spent the day wandering around London, pointing out Harry Potter references as we went; the day was intended to be a self-guided Harry Potter tour, but as two plan-less people we ended up being tourists at Buckingham Palace, watching waterfowl at St. James Park (okay, I was freaking excited about the waterfowl), and listening to reggae street music on a bridge over the Thames.

While we sat on the bridge, we watched as London walked past us.  The scene that struck me the most was this elderly gentleman shuffling along the bridge at a painfully slow pace.  He looked to be out for a nighttime stroll, accompanied by two boys who appeared to be his grandsons.  They had their noses buried in their cell phones.  I understand the obsession with technology, and will admit to overuse of it.  What I don't understand is how society will continue to function if the quick descent of social skills maintains the rate at which it is currently falling.  When did we stop being able to look each other in the eye and say what we mean?  When did we start hiding behind electronic devices, completely oblivious to the world going on around us?  It's not just the youth who are guilty; in fact, today's kids are not at fault for this epidemic-- it's the only world they know.  Parents today are so quick to turn the television on to diffuse a temper tantrum, or hand off their iPad to a whiny child in the car.  Kindergardeners have cell phones; teenagers text so much that they don't know how to answer the phone properly or leave someone a voice message.  Living amongst a society of smartphones and googling things instead of having a conversation about them, I too find myself guilty of burying my nose in my iPhone, and I have the x-rays of my perfectly straight neck to prove it.  This is one of the reasons I cherish traveling so much.  I hope to someday find the inspiration, clarity, and pure joy in my day-to-day life that I find right now in traveling.  While I'm traveling, I charge my iPhone every four or five days instead of every 18 hours.  I can sit in silence, close my eyes, and feel the sunshine on my face instead of checking my instagram feed or seeing who's doing what on Facebook because I have a few minutes to spare.  There are always going to be a lot of spare moments, and traveling reminds me to fill them with life.

K

London, England

Mind the Gap

It's 5:30pm on a Tuesday evening.  I find myself deliriously tired on a crowded street in the middle of rush hour (or peak time, rather).  Men in black suits with white shirts are everywhere; I feel like I'm in the middle of Wall Street, except these suits are cut more stylishly and the average age is half of that on Wall Street.  They have better haircuts and smell nicer, too.  Damn Europeans, why don't American men care as much?  I stop one before he crosses the street and point to a cluster of buildings, asking him to explain why half of them are ancient and half of them are totally futuristic.  He delightedly launches into an explanation about how some of the buildings missed the bombs in World War II, which is why they still stand, including St. Paul's Cathedral, but that loads of them were destroyed and new ones were built in their place.  I'm so mesmerized by the accent and the vocabulary that I barely hear what he's telling me.

Fast forward to 7:30pm.  Thanks to Google Maps functioning without wi-fi or roaming data, I have managed to spend the whole day outside of the London Underground and my feet don't even hurt because of my hideous but clearly incredible Chaco's that I had bought for the walk.  I stick out like a sore thumb in my hiking pants and plain t-shirt amidst all of the perfectly-groomed British girls, but what can I do?  I have to carry all of my possessions for 800 kilometers on my back; there's hardly room in my 38 liter bag for high heels, dresses, and accessories.  I see the pub I'm looking for, comb my hair quickly in the loo, and head downstairs for my second-ever CouchSurfing meetup.  

Within 20 seconds of entering the reserved area, I meet an Iranian guy who lives in Australia.  He reminds me so much of my friend Casey from Kansas!  I ask the bartender to give me his favorite beer, so he hands me a sample.  I nearly spit it out and tell him I need the darkest, heaviest beer he's got.  He hands me the sample, telling me that it is what all of the old men in England drink and that I won't like it.  It's not good, but at least it doesn't taste like rainwater from the rusty gutter of the oldest flat in London... I guess Michigan microbrews have turned me into a beer snob.

I sit down at a table with my new friend and we are joined almost instantly by this older gentleman who turns out to be from Romania.  Then along comes a Brazilian.  Then a Spaniard.  A Czech girl.  An Indian guy.  My host from London.  I am in absolute heaven, and there are at least 40 other people in our area still to meet!  This is the reason I travel.  I want to meet as many people in the world as I possibly can-- I want to know why they talk how they talk, dress how they dress, say what they say, and what I can do to make them smile.  I want to have a positive impact on every person I meet, and break American stereotypes while doing it.  I can't begin to count the number of times someone has asked me, "Are you sure you're American?" Americans are known for not leaving their own county, let alone the country.  We are supposedly judgmental, impatient, loud, condescending, and closed-minded.  We expect others to adapt to our ways, we murder our neighbors, and we eat too much.  The fact that my fellow Earthlings think this way about my friends and family makes me sick to my stomach.  I tell them that the majority of Americans are actually kind, open, friendly people who ask you how your day is going at the supermarket checkout.  They are the first to rush over to an elderly man who has fallen down and are a passionate group of people.  My country may not have a good reputation, but as a whole we are a warm-hearted people.  I promise.

K

London, England

As fate would have it

Being one of the last to board the plane to Dublin (really, what's the rush to sit down for 7 hours?), I was shocked that the seat next to me appeared to be empty.  The lady behind me loudly voiced her opinion that she should be the one to get two seats, and I told her that it was probably too good to be true anyways (but really thinking to myself how amazing it would be to sprawl out on two seats and lean both of them back into the whiny lady's space).  I felt a twinge of disappointment when this woman sat next to me, but as it turns out, I couldn't have asked for a better seat mate.

"Where are you headed?" She asked me.

"I'm going to spend a few days in London, and then go to Spain."

"What are you doing in Spain?"

"Walking across it."

She stared at me, dumbfounded.  "Me too."

What followed was one of the craziest airline experiences I've had to date, but I wasn't bothered in the slightest.  It seemed like it was all supposed to happen.  We sat on the tarmac with technical issues for an hour before the temperatures reached 90 degrees and we were forced to leave the plane so we didn't suffocate.  I was unfazed; Robin and I chatted about the walk, compared gear, swapped tips we had been given, and shared stories of previous travels.  Even though she was a bit older than me (with a sixteen year old daughter), we had so much in common, including having both graduated with degrees in Spanish.  When they finally let us back on the airplane, it felt like I had known Robin for years and we were embarking on El Camino together.  

When we landed and she had to rush off the plane to sort out her missed connection with a different airline, I hugged her and we agreed to meet along the way.  American had already switched me to a later flight, but I still got to skip the customs line because I needed to get a new boarding pass and go through security all over again.  The Irish airport workers are the most friendly and helpful I have ever come across, hands down.  I had three people in chartreuse vests running around, using walkie-talkies to try to figure out if there was a way for me to not have to go back to the ticketing area to get my new boarding pass.  The customs officer was more concerned with me getting to my flight than he was with asking me questions about the nature of my visit and stepped out of the booth to point me in the right direction.  I definitely need to come back to Ireland.

K

Dublin, Ireland

The beginning of the way

It's interesting to think about how we get from point A to point B, and how much we miss along the way that we might not even realize we're missing. 

2013 has been a year of interesting journeys for me, and I think the most important thing I've begun to practice is living in each and every moment. It's so easy to forget the pathway and focus on the end result. For the past month or so, everyone has been asking me the same question: Are you excited for your trip? My answer has always been the same: Yeah. I am excited, but I didn't throw away precious moments in life thinking about my upcoming travels. Northern Michigan is the most beautiful place in the world, and I wasn't about to waste it dwelling on the future. 

My journey to Santiago de Compostela began yesterday morning in Traverse City, Michigan. I enjoyed the time I had with my parents while we ate lunch, reminiscing about my Grandpa and the triangle peg game from Cracker Barrel. On the train ride to Chicago, I relaxed and read the newspaper- a luxury I rarely afford myself. I got to spend the day and evening with some great friends in Chicago, and this morning got to sleep in  and leisurely enjoy my coffee. Yes, I'm excited for my trip, but I'm in no hurry to get there. Instead, I'm wringing every last drop out of life and savoring the amazing moments that I am lucky enough to experience.

K

Chicago, USA