"Spain is like a shark attack"

It has recently become apparent that everything I would ever want to learn about myself, the world, or where I come from can be ascertained by travelling throughout Europe with my mother. I've always been a talker--whether with friends, strangers, or authority figures--I will invariably ask them the requisite question, "How's life?" As it turns out, I am silent on the Camino in comparison to mom. Somehow we've accumulated this group of international, devastatingly, absorbingly fascinating friends. There's Theo from Amsterdam, who started the Camino from his doorstep eighty days ago, and will end in Santiago right along with us. There's Gustavo, the most hilarious Brazilian who seems to know everything--mom interrogates him nightly for tips in the upcoming day's walk. Hesse (Or Hasse?) is a Danish man who walked with us for 6 hours today, and we talked about the economy (which was hilarious), the meaning of happiness and the precise pain in our feet. Then there's Serg and Sonia from French-Canada, who told me I spoke French like a native, and that mom looks more like my sister than my mom--we love Sonia and Serg. And Sharon and Harvey! We're instant best friends with everyone we meet on the Camino ( or as Serg says, the Kah-mEE-noh), due mostly to the fact that it's hard to be solitary in a monastery full of 120 internationals on bunk beds, dormitory-style. It's especially hard to stay distant when you're two pelegrinas like mom and I. The two of us were sitting in a little French-Basque restaurant the day before embarking, when mom declares to me, "I think I'm just one of those smiley Americans. I think that foreign men tend to think I'm interested in them, but really I just smile to say, 'You're Basque, and I'm not but I'm in your world, and I'm really happy here!' You know, Lex?" Yeah mom, I know!

The Camino is, truthfully, just a long walk. Or so I keep telling myself. There's a good chance it might kill us. It's not even the length (15 miles/25 kilometres/8.5 hours today) or the weather (torrential downpour)-- it's the damn shoes. All the pilgrims are feeling it--the feet hurt the worst. But it's almost comical, because we're all in varying degrees of unendurable pain. Hasse (Hesse?) is reading "Into the Wild" another story of a long journey into self-discovery, and we all remembered the haunting last words Alex Supertramp wrote in his journal before dying from a poisonous mushroom--"Happiness is only real when it's shared with someone." This journey is not a singular walk (though everyone wil tell you--"This is YOUR Camino")-- it's an experience that we get to be a part of. Along with 200,000 other people. The landscape alone might be enough for some (mom and I have a thing for trees and sheep), but the Camino is a walk you do with others. Each pilgrim has their own reasons, and everyone garners their own lesson, but I am so enjoying meeting all these amazing people. When talking to people who have already accomplished a fair amount or even finished the Camino, they will us that nothing is the same afterwards. It reminds me of when I was last in Spain--Kevin Buddhu told us, "Spain is like a shark attack. Afterwards, everything in your life is marked by the temporal relation to that one event. As in, 'Before Spain, I hated coffee. But after living there for a year, I drink it every day!'" The Camino is, apparently, the same way. "Before the Camino, I never considered myself spiritual. But now..." O lo que sea. I'm realizing that on addition to being non-religious, I'm also not particularly spiritual. I'm a Humanist, one who loves people. Here's hoping that I one day actually make it to Santiago (only 765 more kilometres! Yes!) and that my feet make it. Lots of love from Larrosoaña--!