Today I walked against the wind

So last night I met the French Kim. She came into the albergue in Hontanas late, and took the last bed, the bunk above mine. She said hello, and we chatted about the day´s walk, and I thought, she seems familiar. Later in the dining room I shared a table with her and a Quebecois couple, and it was then that I realized I was sitting next to the French incarnation of Kim. Actually, of course, both this woman, Christina, and our Kim, is each very much her own unique self, but they do share a skin tone and demeanor. Still, later when I learned she created websites for a living, I asked if she consdiered herself an artist (see, I was trying to make the link), she said no, she was too rational. I thought, I know some pretty rational artists, but I didn´t argue with her.

Christina, while French, has until recently run a bed and breakfast in Quebec. The websites she´s doing now are a sort of inbetween thing. Many of the people I´ve met on the Camino, especially the younger ones, are at such moments in their lives--something has ended, they don´t know for sure what´s next, and in the interim they become peregrinos.

Both Christina and the Quebecois couple at dinner--Jane and Leo--had started their walks in France in Le Puy in mid-April. They were veterans. Their English was rudimentary, but better than my French, though I did understand--and translate--when Christina was trying to figure out how to say "mouton noir" in English. Apparently she is the black sheep of her family; all of her siblings are living sensibly middle-class lives on the outskirts of Paris. But Christina says she does not like the French. "They are, how do you say...preejudee?" After some discussion we settled on the phrase "preconceived notions" (the French are prone to them). She finds the Quebecois more open and honest and friendly.

For dinner, I started with the salad, but envied the lentil soup Jane and Christina chose. For the second course, I had carne guisado, big chunks of saucy pot roast with french fries on the side. Excellent. Helado for dessert again. And of course good wine and bread along the way. Throughout the meal Christina kept jumping up to greet someone new coming into the room; she has made many friends in the last month and a half on the Camino.

This morning I set off at six in the near dark. I passed down a shallow valley for ten kilometers, as the light came on to reveal a cloudy sky. At the largish village of Castrogeriz I came to familiar ground. Last year on my visit to Spain with Naomi and the boys I walked from Castrogeriz to Fromista, about twenty-five kilometers--my route for the rest of this day. Funny how that little bit of familiarity changed my experience. I knew what to expect, and the walk seemed less interesting.... It didn´t help that all the way to Fromista I was walking into a strong wind. The last half hour it rained, and I arrived at the albergue chilled and damp.

I immediately showered, then lay down on my upper bunk and napped. A routine of sorts. I am in a room tonight with three other bunkbeds, and all the bunks seem to be occupied by Germans. The older woman below me said that she had learned English in school, forgotten it, then learned it again when her children were in school.

Speaking of Germans, and then I´m done for the day, yesterday, shortly after I met Christoph and Johanna in Burgos, Christoph asked me if I was British. I said, no, I was from the United States. He showed surprise and said, "but English, you speak it so well." That made me laugh. I said, "well, it is my native language," and he nodded as if after all that was a fact worth considering.