Puerta Del Camino Santiago de Compostela

... the city which contains all the old buildings and churches is pedestrianised and huddles round the grand cathedral. The Cathedral is vast and very ornate. The guide books say that is best seen in the rain so that all the lichens and mosses are highlighted. The weather duly obliged!

The car has decided to have a sick day and has gone to the Ford dealer to recuperate! We collect it tonight and move on to Portugal in the morning.

... Brazilian mafia-affiliated club, where he notices our hesitance and tries to convince us to just come in and have a drink at his table. At that exact moment, the other girls call, and I sprint up to the plaza and drag them down to the club, where Maureen and the guy are still standing. The presence of 6 other girls makes us feel much more safe, and now the guy has no choice but to take all of us in (In Spain, it is expected that the person who does the ...

... were actually wearing the shell. It was traditional for pilgrims to put the shell either around their neck or on their pack to identify themselves as a religious pilgrim, so I was intrigued by how few people seemed to have done the pilgrimage for purely religious reasons. Our guide told us that now, the pilgrimage is just at common among outdoor enthusiasts as it is among religious Catholics.

Since the cathedral was filling up for mass, we left to walk to the Parque ...

... We waited. We sat, stood up, waited, sat et cetera, et cetera... From the moment the gate opened at 8.20 pm until we found our position, it was a somewhat scary experience. We were first on a steep grass field going down hill (luckily it hadn’t rained!) which basically led to an ‘run as fast as you can’ experience. After that we were forced into a sort of tunnel, ‘security check’ and ticket control. Pure luck my Bruce ...

... it up on its pendulum and swing it over all the gaping pilgims who were attending mass. (We read that the rope that hold it up has only broken twice in the last 200 years.) We also got our certificates of completion, which could have gotten us a cheap flight to Madrid, but we decided that we would rather spend our last few days in Spain in the Basque region. So we´re going back to our idylic beach in Zumaia again. We´ll spend the next three days ...

... to Porto, this was a nice city as well, for the most part I was very impressed with Portugal. Then after 1 day in Porto I headed up to Santiago de Compestella, back in spain. I have been here now for a few days where I am staying with my Aussie freind that I studied with in Germany, his girlfreind lives here so she had a spare room, so I will be here for a few more days, as its nice catching up with them, as it has been over 1.5 ...

... that looked vaguely familiar. After about 5 minutes of thought, I narrowed it down to an older guy that I had played basketball with at the Corec at Purdue a few times. Forget about it, no way he was in Europe. Once I arrived in Munich I had to head straight to my next plane. It was Munich to O'hare operated by United Airlines, which means, no more free drinks...stupid Americans. Once I took my seat, a man walked up and looked at me funny and ...

... cold. Walk out of town along the river, taking the long route through Samos. Walk is a combination of along the road, and up paths through the woods, right away from the road, past farm complexes, with house, barn and farmyard all together, typically in stacked stone with rustic slate roof. Farmyard odour is affectionately referred to by Jerry and Sharon as "eau de Camino", and has dominated their entire walk. Descend into Samos, where there is an enormous ...

... br>
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 ...