End of Side One

Hello and welcome to to the post-European side of the blog. Right now, Loren is still adventuring in Italy, visiting old friends and no doubt eating some of the tastiest foods known to man. But for my part, I have spent four days in Porto, Portugal and just woke up in the states.

       Porto is a city of tiled buildings and pastries on the river Douro, leading out to sea. The weather was questionable, but Loren and I, being fresh from the Camino, took it upon ourselves to stroll miles and miles all over town anyway. We spent one night at a hostel which had a plaque announcing the award given to it the previous year: “Best Party Hostel”. We had read good reviews, but this made us nervous. Would there be loud, brash partying? Would young people try and make us consume alcohol? Are Europeans down with the high-five?

        However, I don’t think it was party season, because we just cooked dinner in regular fashion, had some Port Wine (Yes, so named after Porto), and trundled off to bed. The next night we booked another hostel, and they had no awards posted on the walls. But if they did, they might have been: “Most Ants in the Hostel” “Award for the dimmest and most creepily-lit rooms” And the coveted “What’s that smell?” award. We were not totally thrilled.

       And then Loren left, and I, Mike, spent one day wandering around in a daze in Porto. With Loren gone, I wandered aimless, silent, and zombie-like through the town, peering in pastry shops and the like. I quickly returned to the first hostel and loafed about for much of the day, causing the staff to wonder, as I sat absently in the living room, alone, if I was as lame and sorta bummed as I seemed. I was lame and bummed.

       But I took my own 4:00 AM bus in the rain to the airport the next morning, and began a series of flights until I made it home to America, where they promptly did the most American thing they could think of: Made me thrown away all my fruits and vegetables, offering me the alternative of a 6 dollar burger. I sat, during my layover, munching on the precious almonds that I had retained.

        And Loren’s most amazing and excellent grandparents have picked me up from the airport and taken me into their home in Florida! I have never been down here, so I am ready for adventures. Humid, flat, sweaty adventures! 

       But what of Loren? Your guess is as good as mine. She is still adventuring over there, minus the internet, I think, so we may not hear from her, dear readers. But don’t worry, I will redouble my blog efforts until she comes back, or until it is quite clear that I am writing to only my mom, at which point I will begin sending her Emails, and cease addressing a fictionally-proportioned grand audience. Until then!

Mike

Game Over: El Camino y El Camiño

That, as they say, is that. After arriving in Santiago, we said goodbye to most of the friends we had made over the course of 32 days of walking. At a big farewell dinner, we said adios to James and Mary, the Danes, german buddies, the English and many more.We attended mass after receiving our Compostela, and surprisingly, we did not see the giant ball of swinging incense as seen on TV.

And the next day, we began our three day walk to Fisterre, or, The End of the World. Each of the three days was very hard, and undoubtedly some of the longest and rainiest days we have seen yet. But we made it to Fisterre, and walked along a long distant road to a rocky outcropping that truely did feel like the edge of the earth. It was there that the sense of finality and completion we were looking for really set in. When there was literally no road left to be tread upon (and no tread on my shoes to use) we turned around, 857 Km, or some 500+ miles later, and went to dinner, and to bed.

Today, we took our first ride on a bus (or any vehicle) in 36 days, and it was amazing to see the countryside that we struggles across for days go blurring by in a matter of hours. We are safe in Santiago, and will go on to Portugal tomorrow.

It is difficult to wrap up, in any tidy fashion, the feelings now bouncing around after the Camino. Definitely a loathing of rain. It has poured for hours on end every days for the last week, and we were ill-prepared for it. But it was strange to finish. The goal was always to persevere to walk to the coast, but never actually to arrive. When you meet people along the way, the merits and values of social class and cultural difference are quite thin, and sometimes transparent altogether. Many people talk about how the Camino is the most real way to meet people and to interact. Of course, we all go back to jobs, families, routine, etc, but it is very clear that when your only concerns are walking, eating, sleeping, and taking care of yourself, you meet people in a very distilled and unique context.

And the people you meet are pretty amazing. We met Mike from New Mexico, who has walked 9 caminos, and once walked with his wife from San Diego to New York, got on a plane to Lisbon, and walked to Jerusalem. His wife broke her leg along the way, forcing the journey to end, but there are people out there with pretty wild stories.

Anyway, I had no idea what to expect from the Camino, and I can´t say yet that I really know what I got out of it, but it was an experience that I cannot compare to anything else, really. I would easily do it again, and I would recommend it to pretty much everyone.

Tomorrow! Portugal!

`

[ccchhhkkkk] Loren here. well. not much more to add to what mike said. The camino is one of the hardest things ive ever done! It was definitely always about the journey, not the destination, but i did get pretty emotional, unexpectedly, on seeing the Cathedral in Santiago. Its a pretty unique and strange feeling to arrive at the thing youve been walking, and struggling, towards for over a month. Relief, gladness, sadness, mourning, praising, etc. Camino numero dos: the walk to fisterre was quite a struggle after having felt done, but it was worth it to see the sea, like coming home.

now that it is over my body has declared, énough!´and i speedily became ill, but am planning on getting lots of uninterrupted sleep and possibly strong medications to help me through.

What i liked about the camino was the simplicity, it mostly was about making sure you were eating, and eating well, sleeping well, and staying warm. and there wasnt much else beyond that. i think its the simplicity and the people we met that make the ending somewhat sad as well as very welcome. Also, anything seems possible now.

time for churros! see you all soon…-Loren

[cchhhkkk]

Jeez, what a bunch of dramatic debbies, am i right? Anyone got some popcorn for the show…hah! -Filbort

FILBOOOOOOORT!!!!!

The Bort Report: News from the back of micheals backpack

Alas, it has been  many a long day since I, Filbort S. Livingston, was crudely “velcroed” to the back of Micheals bag. I have now weathered harsh sun, cruel winds, welcome rains, and icy cold, barely keeping the breath of life in my fragile body, all without much attention from Loren or Michael. They seem to regard my wellbeing and happiness with a trivial flippancy. 

We find ourselves today in Sarria, having only just dismounted our final mountain on the unforgiving quest for Santiago. Looking back on the mountain, as I always do, as a child looks out from the back window of a hatchback, I realized we were walking in the clouds all day. Contrary to the fanciful depictions of animated classics such as Fantasia, they are not warm and fluffy and ideal spots for naps, but cruelly cold, wet, and inhospitable to any living being. 

We are in the home stretch now, twill be but a few more grueling days until the promised land. 

farewell, lucky friends. 

-Filbort S. Livingston

The Rain in Spain Falls Exclusively on Loren and Mike

Mike working on footsteps 45,098-32,000. Long day.

…well, maybe that is a little extreme. Here is what we have doneSLASHlearned.

-The Camino is crazy. I mean, it is far more intense and unique than I think either of us had realized. For starters, meeting and becoming very good friends with other strangers from across the globe is a great feeling. But, sometimes, the people you meet get hurt or sick, or maybe they have higher ambitions to walk. So inevitably, the core group of maybe 80 people within 20 miles ofyou at any given time starts to expand, and some people drift away, or maybe you run into someone you never expected to see again. As in life, people come in and out of your life randomly and unexpectedly and you just gotta accept it all, man, and just go with the flow, dude.

We are totally hanging out in some Spanish Rain. Wowza!

– we´ve hiked halfway across spain!!!! meaning we have walked a measureable distance on a map, pretty cool, man. Also, we´ve hiked in hot sun, rainstorms, wind storms, hail storms, and even snow storms, which is a lot of types of weather to trudge through.

-Blister report: Loren-4, Micheal-1 (and his wasnt even on his feet!?)

– Ok, so maybe we were a little bit lax with the whole “keep your dairy products refrigerated” thing, and fell horribly ill and vomited on the side of the camino and had to take a couple days off. so what, dude? We still hiked about 6 miles while ill, which is braggable, I think.

-If I wrote a book on the Camino, it would be called ´´No Easy Days´´, because that´s what we have seen. Maybe it´s really hilly. That´s hard. Maybe it´s insanely flat and boring. Hard. Maybe you´re menstruating, and you have to do so in a rain storm. Yikes. Either way, there is always a challenge.

Loren never saw it coming.

-Also, however difficult the days are, the arrival to the albergue and the subsequent relief of laying down and taking a nap or eating some chocolate and going to bed at 8pm is equally as gratifying, and more so if the day was more difficult. As in life, man, you can only be as happy as you are sad. Dude. its like yin and yang, ya know bra? (OMIGOSH, Loren gets crazy when she´s projectile vomiting)

Okay, well now you know! We are at ourhalfway point, are sick and taking a few days off, and plan to return and seek revenge on the Camino. Also, we will be making our way to Portugal after it is all done…whoa! I heard that!

Mike Attempts to Will Inanimate Dogs to Life. (success)

And lastly: Friend Tally-

German Friends: 2

Netherlands: 1 BFF

American: 4 (but sometimes they are loud and annoying. For reals)ç

South Korean: Two friends, officially ´´long-lost´´)

French: 2, but one of them waves at everyone, so we may not be special

Irish: A ton. The Irish are coming out of the woodwork and they love that we just came from there.

Spanish: Less than you´´d think, but still a few. maybe 4-6

Italian: At least 2. But they may have poisoned us, which is why we´re sick now.

UK: 1!

Also, on day one, Michael found (no lie!) a mysterious gold ring in a wooden drawer. He has kept it, and now the duo is making a pilgrimage to the end of the world to destroy it, with the help of a vibrant cast of characters of all different races and creeds. If Loren and Mike aren´t Frodo and Samwise, I just don´t know who is!

´´Yes...Mordor.´´

And so we will trudge on! After we can part with the luxury of our sick room SLASH fancy hotel room (which we decided to splurge on for the convenience of a private bathroom and freedom to sleep past 6 am) we will take up the banner once more and walk, ever lumberingly and american-like, to Santiago!!! and then hopefully to Finnisterre (the end of the world) where we will see the ocean and burn all of our posessions. Huzzah!

Pilgrims on a Mission

Guess what!

     We are alive and doing well, though we cannot share any pictures of our travels at the moment. We arrived by train in St. Jean Pied De Port, and walked a small 5 KM to a place called Honto. Then the next day, we walked 19 KM through the pyranees to a small town called Roncesvalles, in Spain, and out of France. We were exausted, but today we managed another 27 KM hike to a little place outside Pamplona. 

     So far we are meeting lots of cool people (German, Italian, Canadian, French) but our BFF so far is a cool older dude from the Netherlands who speaks English pretty well.  we have also already formed an ongoing battle with our arch-nemisis, Jean Val Jean. more later. (he is the worst, which we have determined for no reason, but we are on a quest to vanquish him)

     As far as our physical states: It is tough to carry a huge backpack across a country, it turns out. Loren now walks like she´s in her late 80´s and Michael´s face reminds one of a ripe Tomato. All is well and hostel life is funny. Spending the night with crowded rooms of weird adults from across the globe reminds one of a bizarro summer camp. Loren and Mike Out!!

Day one

Arrived in st Jean. Warm, excited, already seeing other pilgrims many times. We have a Canadian enemy, we named him Jean Val Jean. We start very sooooon.

Le post petit

Well, no computer ad no uploading of
Photos, but Paris was amazing! We met with the great Alex Stokes, stayed Next to Norte dame, ate
Good food and saw wonderful things. Runs were taken along the seine, and as it turns out, the Eiffel Tower is one of the most amazing structures ever, and as if that wasn’t good enough, it sparkles with a light display every hour. Tomorrow we head
Out to Bayonne in southern France. A little sad to leave Paris already, but it will be Camino time…

some photos are upsidedown

here are some pictures of our final days in ireland

mike playing next to our chicken dust baths

 

at the copper mines

 

our irish bffs

 

st. patricks day

 

 

Ireland: 10/10

...and we never saw her again

Tomorrow, the Wwoof is over, and our time in Ireland will reach the inevitable conclusion we have been moving towards for nearly three months. We will get on a plane in Dublin and arrive in Paris in the evening.

Ireland, a country with which I associated vague swaths of the color green and tin whistling has become a much more colorful interesting place, and I am grateful to have had the chance to explore it. From three hour bike rides through country roads to chatter-filled pubs, I have seen at least a handful of facets on the face of a fine country. The people were consistantly warm, the food filling and appropriately prepared to counteract the cold, and the roads frighteningly winding.

On our farms , we dug holes and built structures   and many stories were traded. There aren’t enough good things to say about the people we stayed with, let alone the whole country.

And now. Paris. I will be keeping silent and looking as french as possible to avoid suspicions that I am not a local.  My plan is to act so overly confident and accustomed to the day-in, day-out routine that I cannot even be bothered to speak in shops, and that I must simply roll my eyes pretentiously when spoken to by the French.  Yikes!

mais oui!

St. Patrick VS. Snakes

St. Patrick Wins! Had a terrific st Patrick’s day in Dublin with Brazillians, guiness, oyster beer, and parades!! Whoa!!!!!