Hotel Hesperia Compostela Santiago de Compostela

We travelled through thick fog over and through the mountains on typically heroic Spanish roads. They cut through mountains and build viaducts over the valleys. We drove through and around weary looking Pilgrims to our campsite which was on the Camino de Santiago. It was closed. After some interesting encounters with some locals, one old man practically ran away when asked for directions, we found this camp site.

The centre ...

... in Santiago. He invited us to come have a drink with him at his friend's club, who was also Brazilian. We tried to tell him we were meeting our friends in the plaza in a few minutes, so we couldn't leave, but he was not having it, and tried to put his arms around us and lead us to this club. Of course, we hadn't payed at his bar, so we kind of felt guilty slipping away from him, but we definitely did NOT want to end up alone at a club with this dude. We get to his ...

We left the Casa Rural in the morning right after breakfast, headed for the city of Santiago de Compostela, about an hour and a half inland. Santiago is the third most important Catholic pilgrimage site, after Rome and Jerusalem, because it is supposed to house the remains of Santiago (St. James the Apostle). Santiago was the only city in Galicia I had ever heard of before our trip, and I has heard it was a pretty cool place, so I was quite excited. We were a little behind ...

Dit was echt zo waan-zin-nig: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eypg1pBY 3nk, het WOW moment begint bij 0:40...

This was really a-ma-zing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eypg1pBY 3nk, the WOW moment starts at 0:40...

... avoir ma compostela. J'ai eu ma compostela. Encore la, je m'attendais a quelque chose de plus extra que cela, mettons que c'est "plain". Pas grave, je n'ai pas fait la marche pour cela. Ma prochaine preoccupation etait de me trouver un endroit a coucher. Alors que dans les autres villes, les albergues se trouvaient au centre-ville, ce n'est pas le cas ici, autre deception. Il fallait soit que je retourne sur mes pas 30 ...

... realta' io sento di piu'. Il vero scopo del viaggio era arrivare all'oceano piu' che qui... e comunque, gia' questa prima parte e' stata una gran bella emozione. Dall'ultima volta che ho scritto merita assolutamente una menzione il famoso polpo piccante di Melide: siamo andati a cena in una pulperia dove cuocevano i polpi in un pentolone su un fuoco da cambusa all'ingresso e poi era tutto tavolacci di legno, vino tinto ...

... ya back at school and headed to the taxi stop. We all kissed and hugged and kissed and hugged and laughed at our drunken stooper and kissed and hugged... no tears allowed... I'll see you really really soon! I got in the taxi and headed to the airport. I had an 8:45 flight. Oh, how much I wanted to just click my heels... there's no place like home, there's no place like home.....Man, Dorthy had it made.

... the mall, to the right, on the ground floor, all in Spanish, and managed to find a call centre/Western Union/internet shop. They were helpful, and shifted someone off the machine with the CD burner so MP could download the diary, and upload photos to travelpod, and also cut the photos to CD. The programs to cut CD's are always unnecessarily complicated, and MP ended up running out of space for one CD, which shouldn't have happened, so got the girl on the desk to ...

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These Spanish people are crazy, they do this all the time. The streets were covered with stylish young Spaniards who were in various states of drunkenness and mobility. Party all night, and then, to quote Pito, "tomorrow I am from the bed to the sofa, from the sofa to the bed, all the day."

My hostel owner and her mom laughed at me (but gave me cake) when I crawled out of bed at noon today to pay for another night. I spent all day wandering around town.

There's live ...