Happy St. Patrick's Day! Today was quite a fun day, which started bright and early this morning walking into Sahagun to run errands and have a mini celebration in honor of Paddy's namesake. Sebastien decided to run to town–more power to him–and Paddy and I arrived shortly after 10:30 or so. It's just under a two hour walk.
Today is also market day in town, so we walked down the main street and surveyed the day's offerings. It's a small setup, but really there's about anything you could ever want. From fresh meats and produce to cheese and nuts to candies, tools, toiletries, and personal goods. Quite a large mix of wares all in all. My favorite booth is definitely the one that sells shoes and ladies' stockings. The reason being because to display the stockings they have this cavalry or disembodied mannequin legs all hung in rows. It's kind of a morbid transference from the butcher's booth with his different meats hung out to be displayed in a similar fashion.
We found Sebastien in a nearby bar, and had a coffee. Then I headed up a few shops to Cafe Zentral to check my email and upload the newest entries to my blog. After I left Paddy had gone to buy a chicken so Una and I sat out in the Plaza Mayor and soaked up some of the warm sunshine. Paddy returned, Sebastien went to make a call back home to his daughter, and meanwhile Paddy and I walked up the street to get some bread. We all met in the plaza shortly after and headed to the Irish pub in town to have our Guinness. I stopped off at the post office to drop off my letter and buy some more stamps, then just as we were arriving at the pub the James' pulled up in their festively painted car, decorated with shamrocks.
James himself had shaved his head smooth (from the sort of bald state it was in before) and painted a shamrock on his forehead, and was wearing this awful green sarong, in kilt-fashion. They joined us in the pub where the man running the bar gave us all these great floppy felt hats that were being handed out to promote Guinness. We even got Paddy to wear his for about five minutes. We hung out for about an hour or so, then Paddy and I headed home while Sebastien went to go do some other errands. We got a picture with all of us in hats (except Paddy) in front of the pub. I'm going to get it from Marianne and send it off to Guinness!
The walk home was fairly tiring, but in a good way, despite a new blister on the bottom of my foot. I tended to it, changed my clothes, and then Paddy and I had some leftovers and anchovies for lunch. I think while walking the Camino I'll be pretty much enjoying a diet of bread, sardines, some fresh fruit, water, wine, and perhaps a little cheese now and then. I'm not sure if life could provide anything more perfect than that. My grandfather will be proud–on account of the sardines and anchovies–my grandmother will be mortified. To that regard though, I could only be so lucky to be a fraction of the man that he is.
After lunch I headed to bed to take a siesta, which ended up lasting much longer than I'd planned and I slept for close to three hours. I had the most bizarre dream though, which I've been able to scribble down on a sheet of paper in the fashion of a theatre play, listing the premise, the “cast,” as it were, and drawing a rough diagram of the eclectic setting that the dream took place in. Perhaps if I get the time to write it out in full I'll share it here. The best summary of the entire dream is probably the title I gave it: “A day in California – and fire fell from the sky.” It's probably some kind of apocalyptic sign of something to come, though I'd rather sum it up to the anchovies!
After reading for a little while in the kitchen–Paddy suggested a book of essays by Montaigne, which I'm enjoying–I made a quick dinner of spaghetti with tomato sauce for the two of us. Sebastien still hasn't come home from wherever it is he wandered off to, though neither of us are overly concerned. Now I'm sitting here writing and ripping a few more CDs before I head to bed. It was a pretty tiring day, so I think I'll sleep well, and perhaps will pick up that dream I started earlier during my siesta. Cheers!
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