Albergue Nights

I ate breakfast, as I have the past three days, with a fellow pilgrim I first met at dinner in Astorga, Neils Andreasson. Neils and I are a lot alike; we´re both solitary walkers who enjoy the company of our own thoughts, but we both like a little company at meals. Neils speaks only Finnish and English, so he felt linguistically isolated in some albergues where French, German, Italian, and Spanish are the dominate languages. I have more Spanish than Neils, but we were both happy to find each other whenever our paths crossed. A retired homebuilder, Neils is a strong, wirey man who speaks very quietly but always with good humor. He´s looking forward to seeing his grandson who has already started in his first indoor soccer league back home in Finland (yes, the Finns are crazy for soccer like the rest of Europe). Today, we shared our last meal. Neils always has a toasted ham and cheese sandwich for breakfast--it´s not a real preference, but he learned to say "sandwich--jamon y queso" early in the walk and just went with what worked. We talked a little about the cathedral and our trip. After breakfast I walked him to the bus stop where he would catch the bus to the airport, fly to Madrid, then change flights home to Finland. We shook hands--and then, yes, exchanged a man-hug.

Saying good-bye is part of this trip. Tomorrow, five of us--Yvon and Minnon from France, Roberto from Italy, Christina from Ireland, and I--will travel out to Finisterra together. Wednesday, Yvon and Minnon catch the train back to St. Malo in France and Roberto takes his flight to Italy. Christina and I are on the same Ryan Air flight for London on Thursday. It feels like a high school graduating class splitting up. More pilgrims came walking into Compostella today, but I didn´t recognize many faces. You get to know people for a day or two ahead or behind you, but one by one, we´re all going back to our lives. So here, have a couple of albergue stories that I hadn´t told before--the reason why you can become good friends in the space of a few days or weeks.

WORLD CUP REMATCH
One night in Burlada, a group of us were having the pilgrim meal in a small albergue when the subject of the recent World Cup final came up. Two Italian men were happily reliving every moment while two French guys contested the entire affair as suffering from inequities including refs who were paid off to Italian players who shouldn´t have been allowed to compete. Over dessert, the Italians bet the French that they could beat the French right then and there--if they only had a ball. The manager of the albergue, a Frenchman who was a member of the Society of St. James, reached behind a counter and pulled out a soccer ball. That was it--they insisted that we all head up to the local school to play the official World Cup Rematch. Now, I´ve tried to express in past blogs that after hiking 24km, NOBODY is in any condition to play anything other than cards. But we went. One of the Italians was pretty drunk, so we put him in a goal. The French used two goalies--a woman from Austria and a woman from Australia. One of the French suggested that these two should work together since they came from practically the same place (he may have been a little drunk too). I was an Italian for the evening. I don´t really have to describe the match. Everyone was in sandals or socks. None of us could run. Long John Silver would have been a better striker than any of us. The Austrian woman literally had a bandaged foot, and the Australian´s idea of defense in goal was to shout, ¨"No, No, No!", whenever the ball was successfully nudged in her direction. I think the Italians actually scored more goals, but as darkness fell, the Italian men graciously proclaimed that the French had triumphed. The World Cup Trophy (an empty wine bottle) was awarded in the middle of the field, and the victors were paraded back to the albergue. Every international conflict should be so easily and amicably resolved.

STONE SOUP
Evelyn Tanner loves the story "Stone Soup." It´s a children´s tale about a guy who comes to town, tosses a rock in a pot, then convinces the rest of the populace of the goodness of gravel. Well, it works with adults too. One night about 10 days ago, we´d just about had it with eating out. There was a grocery right next to the albergue, so a German couple bought a bag of potatoes and just wanted boiled spuds. They were complaining that they´d had to buy too big a bag--they couldn´t possibly eat all these potatoes--when a French cyclist spoke up, agreeing that he had had to buy a big bunch of carrots, his favorite snack on the trail. Just then a young couple from Franch enterted carrying their bread and cheese, and another German woman said that she´d go buy some lamb if we could put everything together in a stew. Smiles went all around as we began to get excited about a little home cooking. Now, Dianna will attest that I love to eat, but I don´t like to cook, so I suggested that I buy some wine. Yvon, my French pal, spoke up saying that he would go along, "To help Jerry spend his money wisely." Yvon had previously made fun of the fact that I rarely drank wine and clearly had no understanding of the fruit of the vine. I bought a couple of bottles (under his close direction), and Yvon bought another with a bottle of lemonade ("For the Germans to mix with their wine--they know just a little more about wine than you do"). Eleven of us sat together and shared a meal to which everyone had contributed something. No dinner tasted better. And don´t worry, Evelyn--we remembered to take the stone out.