A long and tiring day

Today was an incredibly exhausting day, but rocked nonetheless for the most part. I got up just after 8 and hopped in the shower, dressed, then had coffee and some breakfast. Paddy and I left to walk into Sahagun just after 8:45 or so and arrived just shy of an hour and forty-five minutes later. Once in town we stopped at the pharmacy, got the day's newspaper, and went to Lupa to get some groceries. We went over to the Cafe Zentral and Paddy decided he was going to head back. I wanted to update my blog and check my email, so I told him to go ahead and that I'd catch up later.

No word yet from Jeremy, which is starting to irritate me. If he's on vacation or something he could at least put up an out of office reply on his email. I don't know, perhaps I'm being silly and the corporate world made me inpatient concerning matters like this. I called him earlier tonight, and again, no answer. We shall see I suppose. Otherwise, it's too expensive to use my Cingular phone for calls, so I'll just have to continue borrowing either Patrick or Reb's phone to put my SIM card in until I hear from him. I just hope it's before I leave.

Also my mom emailed me and told me she wasn't going to be able to make it out to walk the last leg of the Camino with me because of work, so that was disappointing. (Edit: I talked to her on the phone too and she said someone from one of her offices asked for the link to this blog, so hi to any of mom's employees who happened to start following my trip. Thanks for reading.) On the up side though now I don't need to worry about being Some Place at Some Time to make sure we're able to meet up. It's not big deal, and hopefully she'll get to come out on vacation before I come home. I'd still really love the chance to show her around Paris and other parts of France. I'm seriously considering spending most of my trip there too. Now that she's not coming I don't need to fly to Rome after the Camino, so I think I'm going to walk up into France and just spend as much time there as I like, and if I get to Italy I do, if not, oh well–it'll be there next time! I miss France so much, and now that I know my French is still up to par (after meeting some other Francophones in the area) I'd be lying if I said I wasn't anxious to get back.

I stayed there for about half an hour, then left to head back to Moratinos. It was a little chilly this morning, but by time I'd left to return it was really a beautiful day. The clouds and hills were so bright and clear, and the mountains, fresh with snow, were incredibly bright. It was really a picturesque sight, but unfortunately I didn't have my camera.

Paddy had stopped off at Casa Barrunta to get a drink, and I ended up catching up to him about half way between San Nicolas and Moratinos. Una was mighty pleased to finally've been let off the leash and was busy hunting little critters like she does.

A pilg that I'd seen twice on the way back was in Moratinos when we got back, and after we'd been home for a few minutes he found his way to the house. Somehow these people are sent to Moratinos to help James work on his house, and being he's not here all the time they always manage to find their way here. I'll have to edit his name in later–it was something like Roovis–and he was from Estonia, walking back from Santiago. He was nice but not very talkative, though his English seemed to be good enough. After lunch (leftover, reanimated, reincarnated–whatever you'd like to call it–soup) I crawled back into my sleeping bag to enjoy a siesta. I dozed off listening to The Stranger, which being a rather short book, I'm almost finished with. Paddy says that The Plague is an excellent story as well, though I think I'm going to take a break from the existentialism and listen to the copy of Silence of the Lambs that I have. I thought about it earlier walking past the barn down the street and hearing the sheep causing a ruckus in there. When Libby and I arrived we had gone in and looked at all the sheep and the new lambs. They've sent the majority of the lambs off to be slaughtered, or so it seems as the population has been significantly depleted since. Nonetheless, it's been a while since I've enjoyed the company of Dr. Lecter, so that'll be next on my list. I may add a little side box on this blog and start listing the books I'm reading/listening to.

So after my siesta I put my shoes back on and went over to The Alamo to finish the adobe (read “mud”) plastering I was doing upstairs. The Great Wall is really looking quite impressive, and is nearly finished. I'm anxious to see how James goes about building his arch though. In theory it shouldn't be hard. I mean people have been building arches out of stone for centuries upon centuries with little to no problem, and really the arch is a simple yet important architectural feature. Nonetheless, I don't really know if I would know how to go about building one myself. My mud wall completed, Paddy happened by at the same time taking Una for another walk, so I headed off with him. Walked for about an hour and then came back home and made some phone calls before dinner.

Paddy bought some more chiperones (I don't think I'm spelling that correctly, but their the squids we had the other night) and cooked them into a nice spicy pasta sauce. It was really good. I did the washing up, and decided I'd come in here and tap away for a bit and then call it a night. All the walking in addition to the upper body strength required to mud plaster half a wall is going to allow a very good sleep tonight I think. I feel great otherwise. I just hope the weather continues to get warmer tomorrow.