I flowed into Santiago proper and my first stop was Sybille’s home (where she had told me to return should I ever make it back to town). She wasn’t home at the time, so I simply headed to the Cathedral plaza to rest a bit and soak up the joy of that day’s arriving pilgrims. […]
Several of the Friends I had already met along The Way had already offered their amazingly heartfelt assistance regarding helping to facilitate the logistics of getting me over the ocean to finish my Walk, and now it appeared that the time to engage the same had arrived. Tom provided tactical assistance regarding me obtaining a […]
I checked in briefly online that second morning and found that my journey across the ocean was unfolding with startling smoothness – with the bus ride already reserved and all necessary documents already printed and the plane ticket already funded and even a pre-flight stay-over in Madrid already being offered. And so it was with […]
I headed then thereafter to another afternoon of service at the Ecumenical Open House for pilgrims, this time with Sybille in place of Alasdair, where much of the Goodness of the day before is lovingly repeated – setting up and cleaning up and attempting to Care for the Caregiver, smilingly re-routing merely curious pilgrims touristically […]
Much of the next day was spent tidying up my affairs, cleaning Sybille’s home & helping her with a few errands, reading Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, and generally soaking in the gratitude-ladled excitement of my soon-to-be-continuing Adventure … “I believe that life is often about perception and courage – the ability to perceive […]
It turned out that my dear friend Mate from Hungary – who I had first met way back in St. Jean Pied du Port and alongside whom I had been blessed to walk for several days across the expanse of northern Spain – had arrived in town a few days prior, and we were able […]
While there is no doubt that my older and already aching body would have preferred a short & more comfortable ride to Madrid than the bumpy overnight bus ride that was offered me, there is just as little doubt that my Soul only felt gratitude for the same … “Such is life, imagined or dreamed […]
And then I arrived in Madrid proper – and then I easily walked its pre-dawn & still relatively peaceful streets – and then I received without incident my replacement documents from the U.S. Embassy – and then I arrived with even less fanfare at the residence where I would be living during the short wait […]
After mentioning my Walk and a bit about its Way to the hotel’s front-desk clerk while checking in, I am then immediately showered with an almost reverent Kindles; an honoring of my Endeavor that I had rarely experienced up to that point – an honoring that would persist throughout the majority of the three days […]
And this is the lavish manner that breakfast was laid before me every morning for all three days of my stay. It was frankly somewhat off-putting to be showered with such an opulence of both softness & sustenance after such a long road that was so often filled with hardness and hunger, and yet I […]
Hanging out in my room all day didn’t feel anything close to Right and neither did sitting and trying to write for hours in the hotel’s downstairs lobby, so I regularly ended up strolling the neighboring streets – to see what I could see, yes, and yet also to give (the local homeless) what I […]
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