Don't STOP the Rock 'n' Roll!

I think tonight's going to be an early night for me – I'm headed to bed right after I get some thoughts typed out. I'm tired, but feeling rather good compared to yesterday. I got up this morning a at about 9:30ish, which I think has become my “usual” time. Not too awfully early, and not too late that I feel guilty! Perfecto. I was still a bit grumbly when I woke up so I had some coffee and bread and then a nice hot shower.

Paddy and I went out back to will the garden into being manageable, hoping if enough good thoughts were directed it's way the work would do itself. Sebastien has this idiotic idea that he's going to just go out there and use a hoe or rake and break up all the large chunks of clay. He likes hard work. It makes him “feel like a man.” Direct quote people. Now I have to admit that irritated me a bit, making my think of my sister's “working man” boyfriend. Such cock-a-mamey bullshit (excuse my American) sometimes, I swear. Anyhow, tomorrow while we're in town we're going to see about renting a smaller tiller and I'll just knock out the whole area in a few hours – easier and more time efficient. Sebastien can dig holes over at The Alamo if he's feeling insecure about his manhood.

After that, The Alamo is exactly where I headed, proceeding to piss Sebastien off I think by telling him that I had no intentions of helping him dig the ditch the other guys messed up. 1) I don't want to dig a ditch, 2) I don't understand why the guy who dug it with a crane-like digger can't come fix it, and 3) if anyone needs to be helping him, it's James! So instead I worked on sanding the posts James had left me, though the sander kept eating the paper, so I'm going to have to complete the project some other time after someone fixes the tension on it. Edit: turns out the sander is broken, so James is going to tinker with it.

Came back to the house, read a little about Spain, and then Paddy fixed spaghetti with a nice (he called it a poor imitation of) putanesca (sp?) sauce. I've never had it before, so it tasted good to me – olives, anchovies, and some other things cooked in a simple tomato base. After lunch I retired from the kitchen to read The New Yorker for a bit in my room, and then decided I needed to get out for a bit, so told the guys I was taking off and went for a walk with Una. Little did I know this was exactly what I needed.

We headed East, past the “ghost town” site, through the next village over called Teradillos de Templarios, and onward to Ledigos. Teradillos was a really cool little town, with a couple nice areas for pilgrims to stop, cook out, get some water, and rest. Basically like “utility” stops along the way, but they were quite quaint. Once I was outside Ledigos I wasn't sure which way to go (the Camino isn't marked to travel it in reverse, so you have to kind of follow the arrows backwards, which sometimes isn't as easy as it may seem). A man approached me and asked me something, which at first I didn't understand, but then suddenly realized I did, and perfectly well... he was speaking French!

I don't really know what prompted his salutations in French, but it was a surprise, and a pleasant one at that. It turned out that he was a professor in Ledigos, a Spaniard teaching French. We had a very nice conversation, walked into town and then met one of his relatives, an older man who according to the first guy is like the be all end all of knowledge and knows everyone around. It was a very interesting time. We were there for about thirty minutes, and then Una and I made our way back to Moratinos. It was a fantastic walk, and really helped with my bad mood. One of the best parts was the graffiti I saw on a stop sign, which I thought was good enough to be the title of this entry. I got back to Moratinos and Sebastien and James were sitting outside The Alamo working on consuming one hundred shots of beer in one hundred minutes – a silly spectacle at the very least.

I got back and a new pilgrim, Forn, another German, had arrived, with his Giant Schnauzer, Lola. Both a very friendly, and we had a nice supper of mash, broccoli, and some pork. Certainly not the tastiest thing I've concocted while here, but it did the trick.

James and Sebastien are back know, and being a bit rowdy, and I've kind of lost my train of though, so I think I'm going to head to bed. All in all though, I had an excellent day. Cheers!

Update after last night: So James and Sebastien were quite drunk when they'd come back, and proceeded to get on me about 1) my attitude, which Sebastien thought was because of him for some reason and 2) because I left the posts unfinished earlier. I couldn't really do anything about that, and I didn't really think to ask Sebastien if he knew how to repair the sander until after I'd left The Alamo after sanding for about an hour, and going through four or five sheets of sandpaper. Then Sebastien got all nasty about how he thought I was doing things like slamming doors and ignoring him because I had some problem with him – which really, is not true. I told him the other day that I just wasn't in a good mood, but in his drunkenness he refused to believe me when I told him that my grumpiness was in no way associated with him. Things basically got to a point that they both had offended me to a degree, and I was tired of arguing with them, so I got up and left to go to bed.

What a crappy way to end my day, eh? James came in about 10-15 minutes afterwards and asked me to speak with him, and apologized, and took a more accurate account of what had happened with the job I told him I'd finish earlier (Sebastien had made it seem as though I worked for five minutes, and then for no reason left. He was irritated that I wasn't willing to help him dig the ditch.) Then today (writing this on Thursday now) they'd both apologized for being stupid, blaming it on their inebriation. That's not a very good reason, but I'm not going to aggravate the situation by making any more drama than they've already started. I'll shrug it off (and still feel a lot better despite it all) and go about my business.