End of holiday (for this month)

The parents left on Saturday for Amsterdam and Beza and I went to see them off.

Then to cheer me up, we went to my second hand bookshop in Madrid and I bought a few cheap books and felt better. I'll see my parents again in a few weeks anyway. But I still felt a bit sad, after spending a month with them travelling around Europe.

I think we had the most fun in Slovenia, which was as breath-taking as it was back in 2006, with the people still as open and friendly, and in Spain doing the Camino de Santiago (although Mum had a few problems with her knees). (Photo: Lake Bled, Slovenia, in a rowboat we hired)

Italy was definitely nowhere near as good as it's hyped up to be. I've been there three or four times now and I'm sorry to say every time it strikes me more as a country that's getting left behind. Yes, there's beautiful architecture, art, scenery and maybe twenty, thirty years ago, it was the best option on the country-to-visit list, but now that we can go to places not so accessible a few decades ago, with equally beautiful things to see and people more culturally interesting, why go there?

But then again, I've never been particularly interested in Italy and I've never really understood the people who are. I blame the Super Mario brothers who have cheapened the image of Italians to pizza-making moustachioed men that say 'Mamma mia!' with their over-exaggerated accent.

It's been a bit exhausting so much travelling. We hired a car in Italy, which made going around Tuscany a lot easier and also one in Spain so after arriving in Santiago, we popped over to Porto and

I learnt how to drive a manual car on the wrong side of the road. (Photo: Arriving in Santiago)

Bit stressful, driving in Spain. I killed the battery about five times on my first attempt to start the car and in the cities, I panicked a little with all the cars behind me and kept flicking on the windscreen wipers instead of the indicator lights.

In Porto, we went to the beach and I now know why beaches in Portugal are not famous. I've swum in cold oceans before, but here, after two minutes you really have to get out because it doesn't matter how fast you move, you still freeze.

We've had a lot of luck, travelling around in Spain. When we stopped over in Vigo, it was on the day they had som huge festival, with aerial displays and activities at the beach, so we had a look. My dad reminded me of a 5 year old boy, he was so mesmerised by the planes doing loop-the-loops. And when we stopped in Llanes, it was the day they brought their saint down from the hilltop so we got to see the procession and people dressed up in funny costumes. (Photo: Luther with a plate of snails in Llanes)

Now I'm just floating around Logroño, with nothing much to do. I've gone to the gym, I've looked at flats, I've eaten and drunk and read and slept. Been very relaxing. Fingers crossed, we'll be able to move in somewhere by the 1st August.

Back on the camino

When we arrived back in Spain, in Barcelona last Sunday, I nearly cried with joy. And when I arrived in Logroño and Beza was waiting at the bus station, I nearly wept for joy again.

I think my love of Spain is infectious. My parents are completely in agreement that Spain is ten times more beautiful than Italy, the food is way better (and more importantly they don't rip you off by making you pay for bread or service), the people are heaps friendlier and Italian ham has nothing on Spanish ham. And if anyone disagrees, they've obviously never tried good Spanish ham. Even the coffee is much better and everything is cheaper.

We're now on the Camino de Santiago, and will arrive in Santiago tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing what the hype is about.

Home- but not for long

Arrived back in Logroño on Sunday night, pretty exhausted from too much fun.

Highlights of the last two weeks (very tough choice):

1. Beza surprising me by arriving early in Burgos.

2. Santo Domingo, which was a lovely town.

3. Food- free tapas in León, queso de cabrales and cider in Llanes and the amazing pintxos in San Sebastian.

4. Going to the beach for five hours, four days in a row with awesome weather, in Llanes/Poo and San Sebastian.

5. All of the camino de santiago minus the blister.

My last night in this flat will be Thursday. I'm not too sorry to say goodbye- we had a good relationship while it lasted but then it started breaking down and tried to electrocute me once. And it's getting damn hot in my room, even at night time. (Photo: Luther overcome by so many pintxos in San Sebastian)

Land of lions

In Leon! Eight days and 180 kms later, I've arrived in Leon with Beza.

He met me in Burgos on Friday. I was going to go to the bus station to meet him at around 6 pm, but I called him at around 3.15 pm, while sitting in a cafe in Plaza Mayor eating lunch and he said he was just leaving work in Logroño to have lunch. So we were chatting happily and suddenly he said 'Look to your left.' And there he was, coming towards me.

Apparently he asked to leave work early so he could catch the 1 pm bus and surprise me.

On Saturday we caught the bus to Sahagún, then walked to El Burgo de Ranero (a village of about 250 people). It's been a great week, though we got rained on this morning. The first few days were sunny and hot. I got up at around 5.30 every morning and started walking at about 6.15. I've met an insane amount of Germans, some Dutch (including a man of about 70 who started in Holland), French, Spanish and a few Koreans. And a New Zealander. Surprisingly, no Australians and no English, though I did meet an Irish guy.

Later in the week, Beza and I are heading to the beach up north. He has family in San Sebastian so we get free accommodation with his aunt.

What happened in the torre

Santo Domingo is famous for its cathedral and tower, which is one of the only ones separated from the cathedral building. There was a saint (Domingo) who performed a miracle with a roasted rooster crowing or something, which is how the village got its name. In honour of him, in the cathedral up high they have two live white roosters on display. I wonder if they actually have eight or nine roosters on rotation so they're not cooped up in the cathedral their whole lives. I also wonder what they do with the roosters if they die or get old. (I suspect they eat them.)

Anyway, so I decided to climb up the tower, which is about 70 m high and not a very good idea after four hours of walking with a 10 kg backpack. I nearly died halfway up. At the top, I met an old man, who started talking to me. He said he was amazed I could speak Spanish and invited me to a coffee in the Parador. Then he gave me a mini tour of the cathedral and explained the history of the gothic part and the roosters before taking his leave of me. He said he had to go before he fell in love with me and his wife got angry at him. Hilarious.

People in the villages are really friendly. When I went into the pharmacy to buy some blister bandaids, the pharmacist also said he was amazed I could speak Spanish. He said he almost had a heart attack when I walked in because he couldn't speak word of English and didn't know how he'd communicate with me.

Day Two, Camino

Yesterday was a bit of a stress and in comparison, today has been fantastic.

Had a stressful weekend. It was my last day of work on Friday, which was actually very cruisey, because the first and second graders had an excursion to the Science Museum in Logroño and the principal asked me if I wanted to go so of course I said yes. We played in the park afterwards.

But then on Saturday, I tried to book accommodation for Eastern Europe with my parents and realised I needed to transfer money in my bank account. Except I'd forgotten my password, tried to reset it, called up and finally got it to work only to be told I needed another password to transfer money (what kind of moronic, albeit secure, system is that?), which I couldn't remember either and this one I needed to reset via telephone but the office for that was closed.

Gave up and went out with Ana and Beza to have a cocktail instead. Then on Sunday, I packed some of my stuff and took it to Beza's house because I have to move out of the flat by the 19th June. We had lunch with his parents, who cook awesome food. His dad goes to the mountains once a week to pick wild mushrooms and makes scrambled eggs with mushroom that are the best thing I've had in ages.

When I came home, booked the accommodation (realised I actually did have enough in my account), which took almost three hours. Then packed my backpack for the camino.

Left home yesterday at about 9 am. Again, some internet guides said it was 26 km but it was more like 30. So it took longer than expected and when I arrived in Nájera, the guy at the front desk of the pilgrims' albergue said all the beds were taken. Then he checked and said there was one left. It was basically a huge room with 100 bunks but much better than sleeping in a school basketball court which is where they put the pilgrims who arrive too late to get a bed. It's also free but you can donate if you like.

Today, left at 6.30 am and arrived at 10.45 am and was the first to check in. Today's albergue in Santo Domingo is a palace.

Hail on the hilltop

On Saturday, Beza and I walked from Logrono to Alcanadre. The guides gave varying distances, from 32 km to 40 km, which was a pain in the arse because we had to time our walk to arrive in Alcanadre by 4.08 pm, which was when the first train back to Logrono was (the second and last train was at 7.25 pm).

We ended up arriving at about 4.20 pm, just missing the train and had to catch the train to Calahorra and a bus from Calahorra to Logrono.

But it turned out that it wasn't so bad after all, considering what other horror might have befallen us.

On the way to Alcanadre, we had to climb up a small mountain and when we reached the top, we saw this huge black cloud hovering over the horizon. It was about another two hours to the village and we hadn't seen signposts for the last six or seven kilometers, so thought we were lost.

Just when we were about to give up, we saw a beautiful yellow arrow on an abandoned barn marking the camino. (The Camino de Santiago is pretty well signposted and it's hard to get lost but we were doing this stage in reverse, which is a lot more complicated that it sounds.)

On Monday, when I read the papers, it turned out the massive black cloud we saw was the biggest hailstorm to hit La Rioja in decades. There were hailstones half a metre high in Alcanadre and surrounding villages and most of the wine crops were 100% damaged, which means no wine next year. Windshields, windows and glass doors were broken, the blinds and corrugated roofs had holes punched into them and everything was devastated.

I'm not sure if anyone was caught in the storm but I suppose it would've been quite uncomfortable to have hailstones the size of cricket balls pelting at your head.

More Camino de Santiago

On Saturday, we did another bit of the Camino de Santiago, from Calahorra to Alcanadre. Again we were going to do two days and again we just did one because the weather report said it would rain. (Photo: in the playground in Alcanadre)

This time we started a little later because it was only 22 km. It was supposed to take about four and a half hours, so when we arrived at 3 pm, after three and a half hours (and including a half hour break for lunch), I actually thought we were in a different village.

We entered a bar to ask directions to the train station, which probably wasn't really necessary because it's a village with a population of 350 people and maybe seven or eight streets. There were five old men sitting round a table chatting or reading the newspaper, and when I entered the bar, there was a dead silence and all the people turned around and looked at me, like they'd never seen an Asian person in their life.

When we started there wasn't a cloud in the sky and the sun was scorching. Both of us ended up getting pretty sunburnt, even with sunscreen but now people can't make fun of me for being so pasty. And for once the weather report was correct. It started pouring down rain at about 6 pm with huge chunks of hail.

The Camino has begun!

Last weekend, Beza and I walked from Alfaro to Calahorra, which was about 25 km, as part of the Camino de Santiago that I want to complete some time this year. From Alfaro to Logroño isn't part of the popular French route of the Camino de Santiago, but I wanted to walk through La Rioja since it's been my home for nearly two years.

Also (and more importantly), there was a festival of vegetables in Calahorra, which is apparently famous for its greens. So I thought I could kill two birds with one stone- start the walk and eat some pinchos in Calahorra. We were going to walk two days but the weather forecast said it would rain on the weekend so we just did Saturday, caught the bus early in the morning to Alfaro and returned to Logroño in the afternoon.

As usual, the weather forecast was wrong because it didn't rain, but it was less wrong that normal. Usually if it says it's going to be sunny, I put on a scarf and extra jumper just in case. And the last few times it's said it's going to snow it hasn't. But on Saturday it was very cloudy and extremely windy.

We stopped halfway to have almuerzo in Rincón de Soto, a village famous for its pears (don't know why- I didn't see any). Almuerzo is a Spanish concept that I don't quite understand but like a lot. It's like brunch, at about midday except people also have breakfast and then afterwards, at about 2.30 or 3 pm they have lunch. Which means they eat three meals before they hit dinnertime.

The wind was blowing against us the whole way and about half an hour after we left Rincón de Soto, we could already see Calahorra in the distance, which was very encouraging at first but then took another two and a half hours to arrive at.

Still, we had some awesome pinchos. My favourite was the one in the picture- ostrich meat with brussells sprouts and carrot on a potato puree base.