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)

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.

Bilbao for Easter

I had a fantastic Easter break. A few days out from the school holidays I felt like I was going insane and if I had to tell another kid to sit down and shut up (not that I actually do that- it's not in my job description- I just stand there looking at the ceiling patiently until the class quietens down) I would pull out my hatchet and splice someone's head open. Plus there was a bit of tension in the flat, with some certain person not liking the way other certain people were doing things. (Photo: pintxos in Bilbao)

On the Wednesday when school finished up, JC also went home for the holidays so I had the flat to myself and I ran around screaming with glee.

Some of my friends were going to a refugio in the mountains, which I was going to go to as well with them but there was a pretty cheap deal in Bilbao for 2 nights and a Murakami and a Cai exhibition at the Guggenheim so Beza and I went. Just as well- it was Andres's birthday on the Saturday so when we called to say happy birthday, he told us it was raining and about to snow. Plus there's no running water and no toilet.

Ness and Cyrille were coming to Spain on the weekend and I totally forgot Ness had told me she was going to Bilbao before visiting me in Logroño so when we arranged to meet, it turned out we'd both be in Bilbao. So we met up on the Saturday night, had some pinchos and travelled back to Logroño together on the Sunday. Stopped over in Haro for lunch, waited an hour and a half at a restaurant, till about 4 pm for lunch and I got incredibly cranky. I started eating the toothpicks while waiting, I was so hungry. But really, if the waiter says there's a 20 minute wait and you end up waiting an hour and a half I think you have a right to be pissed off. Still, the food was great. (Photo: On the way home from Bilbao, we took a detour to a beach)

Ness and Cyrille left on Monday and on Tuesday, Beza and I went to Zaragoza with Rubén because our flight to Brussels left mid-morning on Wednesday and he'd kindly offered to let us stay.

When Rubén told us his flat was big and his flatmates friendly but that it smelt of old shoes or someone anti-anti-deodorant, it wasn't an exaggeration. His flatmates are really nice but it did smell a bit of... something. But very cool guys. We paid a visit to El Pilar, one of the most famous/important cathedrals in Spain and I saw my first confession box ever with a real live priest inside.