May 30--A River and Friends to Remember

ALRIGHT! So, before I get started, can we just appreciate these cute little metal-working things that were on a house as we left Bercianos del Real Camino? Do I know if that house is still inhabited, or when the last time someone lived in it? No idea--but isn't it sweet to see these cute things that someone lovingly added to this house at several different times throughout the years? I like to see the art that people leave in these towns that are just slowly dying, and to know that at one point, this place was probably super alive and vibrant.  It's sad but also sweet.

You know what is ALSO sweet? This thing that I tried in a town we passed through.  It's apparently called a torrija, and it's like SUPER thick and tasty French toast that is coated in I-don't-even-know-what.  I've been CRAVING cinnamon rolls, and I think this was about as close as I am going to get...and the craving was satisfied :D I still would have preferred a cinnamon roll straight out of my mom's oven, or even Cinnabon, but this will do for now :-) The lady said that their place has the best around, and judging by the fact that I haven't seen another place that serves torrijas, they're definitely the best I've had :)

Another cute thing is the crochet knit-bomb things that I've been seeing along the way.  I don't know if they are from peregrinos or from citizens of the towns, but they are impressive!

One more thing that we saw along the way.  Occasionally we'll be walking by some loose leaves, or by some bushes, and we hear this intense rustling in the dead leaves and brush as we pass.  Turns out, the noise is caused by these vibrant green lizards.  They range in size but they can be pretty big--like 6-7 inches on average.  They are quite beautiful though, and they're fun to spot and watch :-)

Okay wait.  For real for real, the last thing.  Every church in Spain, without fail, has bells on the top of it.  This is to call people to Mass back in the day, but they still ring them for Mass nowadays as well.  Anyway, we were passing this old church, and I saw the bells on top, and then I saw that the chains which are attached to the bells REACHED THE GROUND! So of course we went into the field by the church and rang the bells.  Super fun, super random, gotta take advantage of the opportunity while we can :-)

These are all just cherries on the top of the true highlight of the day.  Once we got into town, we checked into our rooms, changed shoes, and headed to the supermarket to get a sack lunch and re-stock our snacks.  BUT, after the supermarket, we went to the river.  No, NOT the canal that we had walked past as we walked into town, but the actual river that was on the map and which literally said we could swim in it.  At first, I was just going to wade in, but then wading turned into skipping rocks, and then one of the girls came back with a swimsuit on, and eventually all of us were taking off whatever we could and hopping in.  (It was varying degrees of clothing cause with garments, you can't really strip down....) Just between the cold water, and being able to take the pressure off our tired feet and legs, and having fun in the water, it was a GREAT hour or two on the river front.  Like for real, it was so chill and fun and casual and comfortable.  I feel that as a kid I sometimes missed out on core friendship activities that a lot of kids have (or maybe it's just stuff that the media tells me is the norm.) I had my family, but I just didn't end up having many friends, mostly because I was making very different moral decisions than what my friends were choosing to do--because of what I believed.  ANYWAY, being able to just jump into a river and eat stuff we bought from the grocery store and just do something spontaneous and casual was so fun, and it was such a different experience from any I've ever had.

Afterwards, I went back, took a shower (which was a fun cold-to-hot water treatment), washed my clothes, and then went out into the town to look for sellos.  Unfortunately NONE of the churches in town had sellos, but this town actually had people walking around and kids playing in the park.  Sometimes these towns feel like ghost towns, but this one was still alive, and it was nice to see that.

We had a tasty dinner with a first course that will be my lunch tomorrow (cause you know I wrapped up the extras and put it in my fanny pack), a second course which was the first fish I've found tasty while here, and then for dessert we had some ice cream.  For some reason, people here really like the handheld ice creams you get in the supermarket in boxes.  But I'm a beggar and not a chooser so I'll take it either way :-)