Post Camino...

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I am currently at our favourite holiday destination, Singapore Changi Airport. We have a few hours until our flight so there is time for one final blog entry...

I thouroughly enjoyed our time, albeit a bit sleep deprived, in Santiago and Barcelona after finishing our walk. On Monday night the large group of people that Angi had come to know during her Camino gathered together in Santiago for final celebration drinks and dinner. Angi appeared to have mixed emotions; she was very happy to see all of the friends she had made on her Camino but was also very sad to be saying goodbye. I went along for the drinks and I knew a few faces but not that many. It is funny how Angi and I ended up meeting completely different people because of the difference in our walking pace. It is also a reflection on our personalities; we attracted, and were attracted to, very different people. I found it good to see the few people I knew, before we went our separate ways, but I was tired after finishing my Camino that day so decided to go back to the hotel early. Angi stayed out with her friends and when I got back I realised we only had one hotel key. That was definitely a mistake as I wasn't able to go to sleep properly since I knew I had to let Angi in when she got back!

On Tuesday we woke up in time for breakfast at our hotel, where we bumped into Debbie and Gib, my walking buddies over the last few days, as they were staying there too. We said goodbye to Gib who was driving to the coast, to Finisterre, that day, then we headed over to the cathedral for the noon pilgrim mass. Angi and I went to see the resting place of the bones of Saint James before we found Debbie and sat down for the mass. Angi felt a bit sick and had to go for a walk outside so I sat with Debbie, not understanding the mass because it was in Spanish, but I understood the priest when he said "uno perigrino australien" as he read out how many pilgrims had completed the walk in the last 24 hours from each country. Debbie did a rough translation later of the message of the mass for me and it was something like "Pilgrims, you can all return home with your lanterns lit, and someday you shall reunite again in heaven", which I could relate to as there was definitely a knowledge that we were all returning home alone, and at the same time hoping to all meet again. Once Communion began, being non-catholic, Debbie and I went to touch the statue of Saint James as is the custom for pilgrims at the end of their walk. We then said a sad (unknowingly pre-emptive) goodbye and I did some souvenier shopping before meeting Angi and a couple of her friends for some spectacular tapas in a local bar/restaurant. Angi then went for lunch with her friends and I went back to the hotel for a lovely siesta!

At 5pm I headed out to meet Angi again for more shopping and at 8pm I went to the cathedral to meet some of my Camino friends, as promised some days ago before Portomarin. There I met Ralf, a german man I had met at first in Roncesvalles in the pouring rain; Debbie, Hans and Peter, the finnish mother and daughter Maria and Marialena and some other known but less familiar faces. That night was the opposite to the night before; Angi and I went to dinner with all of my friends, who were generally all a day or so behind Angi's group, as I was behind Angi. It was great to spend my last night in Santiago with all of my Camino friends and it was sad to say goodbye after dinner. We headed back to our hotel around 11pm as we had to pack for our early flight to Barcelona the next day!

Now that I have had some time to process my thoughts about the last month or so, I have been able to recognise the lessons that the Camino has tought me. The key themes that affected me (and no doubt others too) were:

- Response to change; how the Camino forced me to become adaptive and not fall into a comfort zone
- Knowledge of my fears; on many occasions I was forced to face fears such as my fear of heights, walking in the dark and being unable to go on due to injury
- Pain; how it taught me to accept help from others and how every time I felt it I was actually moving through something and growing myself
- Communication; how easy it is to mis-interpret people due to cultural or language barriers
- Personalities and relationships; how I attract and am attracted to different people due to my upbringing, knowledge, experiences and preferences
- Peace; the kind that I can only feel when I am away from my routine and have nowhere to be, nothing to do and only unfamiliar scenery around (so I am not bored)!
- Expectations; how the Camino forced me to not expect anything from anyone because there was often no way of knowing if I would see the person again. That also forced me to ensure I delt with any conflict immediately as I wanted to make sure I always left on good terms!

I am going to try to remember those lessons and keep the knowledge handy when I return home.

We arrived in Barcelona on Wednesday in the afternoon and, at least to me, our stay was all a bit of a blur. The highlights were:
- the bus from the "Barcelona - Reus" airport to Barcelona city, which took over 1.5 hours!
- the McDonalds we ate on arrival into Barcelona to cure our hangover feeling due to our lack of sleep
- the rain on Thursday; not rain, more like waves of monsoonal downpours for many hours, which led to... the clothes shopping (oh poor credit card...) in H&M and Zara
- the fresh food markets just off La Rambla, where I had the biggest, yummiest chocolate, banana and strawberry crepe
- the Gaudi houses, Parc Guell, Sagrada Familia and other Gaudi architecture on Friday (thank goodness the weather was back to being nice and sunny), which was unlike anything I had seen before
- the tapas and sangria on La Rambla, the main tourist parade from Plaza Catalunya down to the ocean port

Here in Singapore we are preparing to get on our flight, after having a nice time getting our feet nibbled by fish! Angi is just finishing up in her 1 hour massage then 7 more hours of flying and we'll be back to normality...

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