I continue to get lost, even in the tiny pueblos. One of the problems with finding your way around Spanish cities or pueblos is there is no master planned development. The house and streets have just grown organically over the last two thousand years. Another problem is that there are no street signs. You know, the little poles with signs on them indicating the name of the street? None of those. I think the idea is that the name of the street is supposed to be painted, signed, or otherwise noted on the side of the building on each corner. And maybe at one time it was, but buildings get painted, new facades, demolished and rebuilt. In all of these transformations over hundreds of years, the names disappear. After all, the people who own the building know what street they are on, the people living in the town know where everything is, and if they need to give directions to someone coming to see them from outside the town, I imagine the directions are given by land marks, like turn left at the house with the fence. Anyway, even if you have a map with the names of streets nicely printed on it, your odds of finding any information identifying a street is about thirty percent.
Last night I had dinner with a Polish couple. They both work in a bank. They heard about the Camino from a priest who did it last year. He was an inspiration because he was a very old man, like sixty or sixty five. I told them to watch that old stuff that I would be sixty six in three weeks. They were surprised, said I didn't look that old. I get that reaction a lot. I usually tell people how old I am so they will understand why I'm going so slow on the Camino. Eva said that women in Spain who are my age are not in such good shape and they don't exercise. At some moments I feel like I'm eighty and others I feel like I'm forty. I guess it depends on what is hurting. lol
I walked on a part of the two thousand year old Roman Road today. It is definitely the road less traveled. Most people take the gravel path along the highway because it is more direct and there are more places to eat and get water. In fact, I intended to take the gravel path, in fact, I was on it for a while and I was following the yellow arrows when all of a sudden I was on the Roman Road! Must have been God's will or my lack of attention. lol It's all good.
I'm in a very small pueblo named Calzadillo de los Hermanillos. I think there is one letter in the name for each resident. hehehe I'm in a nice little Albergue with a comfortable bed. No wifi or Internet. Tomorrow is a long 15.7 miles through the middle of no where. There are o places to stop and get a snack or water. I'm going to try to carry three liters, that is 6.6 pounds. Of course as you drink it, the pack gets lighter.
I do the usual shower, laundry and market and settle in for a siesta. I'm in a cubicle with two bunk beds. These bunk beds are made out of wood, instead of sheet metal and the are taller, do I don't bump my head when I sit up. After my siesta four young Koreans come in and occupy the four beds in the next cubicle. They are raising a ruckus and the Hospitaltero asks if they are bothering me. I say no, I'm just reading. A while later my new roommate shows up. He is German. I would guess early thirties. He's a television journalist. From the get go he is also a pain in the arse. He walked 30 kilometers (about 19 miles) and he's doing this whole non verbal dramatic thing to let me know how tired he is. I'm trying to read and really don't give a rats ass about his macho 30 kilometers. Lots of people are doing that many and more. I don't get it. It's not an athletic competition.
Then he goes to take a shower and comes back to ask if he can borrow some soap, he left his or ran out and forgot to buy some or something. I tell him I think there is some in the shower that someone left, but he doesn't appear to register. So I put my book/phone down and get out my bar soap. He looks at it like, that's not what I wanted. I find out later at the market that he prefers liquid soap. I just go back to reading.
Later he ropes me into making dinner with him. I think what the heck, people are always making group meals in the albergues and I haven't done this yet It is a nightmare. I got stuff to make a salad, but he tells me to make the spaghetti because he has to prepare all the stuff to make the sauce. Well I thought my part was the salad, but ok, I get a pan, put water and salt in it and put it on the stove to boil. I make my salad, get out some olives to share, and put the spaghetti in the water. Meanwhile he asks me where the napkins are and where the cheese grater is, like I live there and am supposed to know all this. Then he tells me he needs some wine for the sauce, like I'm supposed to snap my fingers and make it appear. When the spaghetti is done I drain it into a collendar and begin to rinse it. He comes running in waving his hands yelling, " no, don't do that." I just drop everything and walk away, before I say something above amends level.
We eat. I ask him why he doesn't rinse spaghetti. He says the spaghetti has gluten in it which builds muscles and if you put water on the spaghetti it washes the gluten away. Good to know. I no longer have to buy all that gluten free pasta, I can just rinse the gluten out of the regular pasta. lol I'm not clear what boiling it in water does to the gluten, but I didn't want to ask. After he is done eating, he goes outside to smoke. Just as I finish eating, he comes back in, says he'll do the dishes later, he can't right now, and goes on and goes to sleep. Well I don't know if any of you have ever heard a man or teenager say they'll do the dishes later. I have and I know what this means. I do the dishes. It wasn't that hard. What an A hole. Oh yeah when I ask if he was going to do a television journalist thing about the Camino, he said yes, about the spiritual journey. ROTFLMAO
Watched the smoke in the sky from the fire, talked to the hospitalteros for a while, went down the street to the bar with Internet and posted a message to all of you, and went to bed.
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