June 10--Talking to Michelle

First off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MARK! He's 30-years-old today!

It was just a good walk today – nothing fancy, nothing remarkable, just cute towns, thriving vineyards and quiet communities. Everything felt very calm, but very alive. Sometimes when you walk through these Spanish towns, they feel silent and dead, but most of the communities we passed through today were quite healthy and thriving, just quieter and slower than some of the other places we’ve been. The vineyards we passed through today were SO GREEN! It was so crazy to see how green and vibrant they were specially compared to those we passed earlier in the walk. I don’t know if it is because it is farther in the summer or because we are going west, but they were so VIBRANT. And, the cherry trees continue to dot our path – I don’t know why this area is so full of them, but the vineyards are lined with cherry trees that are all almost ready for the harvest. 

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Only 220 kilometers (or 132 miles) to go!

Okay, but the real highlights of the day came when I got into town – Villafranca del Biera. First off – we are staying in an old monastery that was then converted to a boys boarding school and is now a hotel. Like this place is CRAZY! The layout, the vibes, the rooms, the places that aren’t being used – I want to go explore it some more but I need at least on buddy cause some of it is kind of spooky… It’s interesting that a lot of times Spanish people won’t lock stuff, they just expect people NOT to go into certain areas, and like… with important places we don’t go exploring where we shouldn’t, but in a place like this? Oh yeah, we’ve got some liberty to poke around :-) Even the town has an interesting vibe – it is more lively than a lot of places we have been, with kids running around and a good tourist population, but everything has echoes of the past. For example, while we were going out to visit a church for an assignment, we passed a play ground – obvioulsy kept up and maintained, but obviously old. It’s interesting to see where care is placed in these towns. 

On a totally different note, I’ve decided that smaller groups are better. Walking the Camino, going to lunch, playing games – it is too much when all of us students are bunched together. But when we are in small groups, it just works – the conversation is more sincere, lunches move faster, playing games is more dynamic, it just works. 
            

Around 2:00, I went looking for sellos and found that siesta here is from 2-4 and literally EVERYTHING was closed, so I sat down with some other students at a restaurant while we waited for their food to come. They had ordered it to go (which isn’t really a thing here in Spain but anyway) and while they were waiting, they sat down at a table with this lady, Michelle. I had gotten there after they had ordered their food, so I was just waiting for their food to come, but quickly realized I was pretty hungry. I also didn’t want to go to the beach that was apparently by the river in the town  - their destination after getting their to-go food. So, when they left, I sat with Michelle and we ate our lunches together, and for probably two hours, just chatted about life. 
            

Michelle is a physical therapist who is doing the Camino for two reasons. 1. She is having a little bit of a mid-life crisis, doesn’t love working in hospitals anymore because of the politics that governs them, and is trying to kind of reset life and figure out what she wants to do. 2. This is a long explanation, but it’s an amazing reason for doing the Camino. A while ago, her uncle and cousin started crossing things off their bucket lists. They had been having health problems – and I can’t really tell if they thought they were going to die, or if they started doing things because they were getting better – but a definite goal once they recovered was to do the Camino together. It was an item on both of their bucket lists. At the end of last year, all their plans were set and gear bought, but then Michelle’s cousin got sick with cancer again and she ended up dying. Michelle’s uncle then called her up – since Michelle had expressed interest to go on the Camino with them – and asked if she wanted to go on the Camino since her cousin had everything ready – the pack, the gear, the plans and flights. Along with this, she and a bunch of the cousins had decided to complete things on this cousin's bucket list. So, Michelle said she would do the Camino for her cousin. It was really cool to hear that as she was going into Burgos, she was having a hard time physically and thought about taking a taxi, but she had made a promise to herself to walk that pack (which her cousin had bought) all the way to Santiago, no matter what. I think we students are getting a richer historical and maybe cultural experience than a lot of the other peregrinos because we are doing this through a study abroad, but I also think we miss out on a spiritual and emotional side of the Camino by doing it in a school group. There have been so many stories that other members of our group have heard from peregrinos similar to Michelle’s. They are doing the Camino for someone they’ve lost, or to reset life, or to get away from something, or to let go and forgive. And since we take rest days, stay together in rooms with only each other, and spend so much time doing things as a school group, we don’t connect with other peregrinos like we naturally would if we weren’t doing this as students. 
            

In addition to those reasons for coming, Michelle shared some other benefits she has seen on the Camino. She is a veteran and served a couple times in Iraq. She talked about how some aspects of the Camino remind her of being deployed, but the memories of war and the new ones she is making on the Camino are almost overlapping, and healing some of those experiences by replacing the bad feelings of fear or sadness from war with contentedness and beauty while on the Camino. She also shared with me an experience that I thought was so simple but so true. The other day when we were walking downhill for multiple miles, she wasn’t feeling well. She got kind of down, was kicking rocks and just finding the bad in the situation. And then she took a second to stop and look around at the trail and realize how beautiful it was, and how blessed she was to be walking the Camino at all. I just think that’s a really great example of how we can either focus on the bad of a situation, or the good. Most of the times, good or bad will be the majority, but we can still choose what to focus on and see, and to just remember what we DO have. She also said something that I really liked, “Life throws at you what it will.” And I added, “but you can choose how you will respond.” She said, well, sometimes you just react and then realize after that was good or bad. So I would add – you can choose how you will respond, or how you will recover. 

A funny part of the lunch was that fact that she got wine with her meal, and they literally brought out a WHOLE BOTTLE – she had one glass and the rest of the bottle just sat there. We wondered how many times that day they had topped off that bottle and served it to someone else :D All that was just a very unique experience that gave me a glimpse of what I think most people do daily on the Camino – connect with strangers in totally sincere ways. It was so great and honestly one of the most spiritual experiences I’ve had on the Camino so far.

The rest of the day went well – we had “Trucha” for dinner. That is trout – which is funny because it is the month of trout in Spain – and HOLY SMOKES who knew trout could be so good?! I mean for real, the lady serving us said it was a speciality of the area and WOW was it good! Even having to take off the skin and take out the spine wasn’t bad because it was so tasty, it didn’t even taste fishy, and we all CHOWED DOWN on those things!