One Year Ago: Arrival
(from my journal)
Somewhere Over the Atlantic
Easter Monday
Less than an hour until we land at Madrid and I make it 6:50AM local time. Managed a few hours of sleep and prayed Lauds. Wide awake now and looking forward to another day of travelling.
Madrid
Easter Monday
It took all of 90 seconds to get through customs and passport control. My bus for Pamplona doesn’t leave for another three hours.
Spent some time working out how to text Francine on the burner phone. Finally managed to get it sent.
Met my first pilgrim. Her name is Caroline and she’s from Holland. She was also waiting for a bus, so we had coffee. She’s meeting a friend in Sarria, and they expect to take a week to walk to Santiago. She’s a writer too – apparently for an education magazine (I wasn’t too clear on that), and she also freelances. We had a lovely conversation before she dashed to catch her bus.
The coffee was terrible. And €2.25. Yikes.
Today’s reading from the Rule is Chapter 50: “Brothers working at a Distance or Travelling”.
On a Bus to Soria
Easter Monday
The landscape around Madrid reminds me of Southern California – hill covered in scrub, a few trees, farms.
And then you pass by a monastery or castle in stone, and the illusion is shattered.
It’s not that this part of Spain looks like California, it’s that the Spanish settlers in California found a place that reminded them of home, and they did their very best to make it one.
Soria
Bus late arriving. Barely made connection to Pamplona. Thought for sure I’d missed it.
Roncesvalles
Easter Monday
It’s 6pm and I’m sitting in my bunk in the albuergue at Roncesvalles. I’ve showered and feeling very nearly human. I still need to wash the clothes I wore today (and yesterday), and find some food. I think there’s a pilgrim Mass at 8pm.
Getting here was an adventure.
I arrived in Pamplona to find the next bus to Roncesvalles leaving at 6pm… tomorrow.
So off to the taxi stand, only to find that a group of pilgrims had just left. I waited around for about a half hour, hoping that somebody else might show up. Only two French pilgrims came, and they were headed to Logroño.
I bit the bullet (and other clichés) and got a solo taxi. There’s another €74 gone. Ugh.
The cabby, however, provided me an education in driving. I can say without fear of contradiction that Italian drivers are not the craziest in the world. The road was spaghetti, and we did not slow down, even around the sharpest corners or in traffic.
Dinner was with a new Camino friend, Linda from Germany.
She walked from St. Jean Pied-de-Port and got slightly lost, walking up and up the side of a hill that was totally unnecessary.
She, too, is a writer, for a solar power newsletter based out of Berlin, where she lives. She was born in Karl Marx Stadt (the once and future Chemnitz), but her family went to the West when the Wall came down.
She’s on the bunk above mine. She gave up the lower bunk to me, in deference to my age. Sheesh.
Dinner was potato soup (possibly with leeks) and fresh trout. Absolutely delightful!
Afterwards, we went to the little Gothic chapel here – Mass was concelebrated by three old monks.
Since this was spur of the moment, I didn’t have my Magnificat, but I’m not sure it would have helped too much, as the monks recited the antiphons and psalms in their proper places, and in addition there were places where the Spanish is much longer than the English translation.
We all received the pilgrims’ blessing afterwards in what was, I’m sure, an abbreviated form.
Took some photos throughout the small, but beautiful church and the monastery grounds.
Ah – I nearly forgot – immediately following Mass, the lights in the church went out and a single spotlight illuminated the silver-clad statue of Madonna and child above the altar.
The monks came down and faced the altar (ad orientem) and chanted the Marian antiphon – I think it was the Regina Cæli – and it was beautiful: deep as the ocean and majestic as mountains.
Not bad for three old monks!
Lights out!
Photos: Days 0 and 1.