Tag: Santiago de Compostela

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The Food!!!

You know that thing where the food server comes to your table (typically when you’ve just taken a full bite) and asks how your meal is?

They don’t do that in Italy, Spain, and Portugal.

And I’ve decided it’s because; they know.

Your meal is amazing. They don’t need your opinion on it to gel that fact for them.

Everybody tried to prep me for what I would experience food wise on our trip. Despite their best efforts, I was not at all ready.

I would say that the two weeks spoiled me, but honestly it was set in stone on day one.

We got up early in Madrid and made our way to the train station for our 4 hour train ride to the start of our pilgrimage walk. It had been a long day of travel from little ol’ Cottonwood the day before and we were hungry. A kiosk in the train station was selling something I’d never tried before (but have now eaten a million times since) Napolitana and coffee for $1.50. Napolitana is a breakfast pastry with chocolate. And the random coffee was sincerely better than any I’d had before.

In a train station kiosk.

Before instantly deleting my Dutch Bros app, I tried the vending machine coffee to see if maybe I was just caffine depraved and the coffee wasn’t that different. The vending machine coffee was also mind blowing!

The whole two weeks was one culinary life altering experience after another. There was not a bad meal anywhere; whether it was out of the grocery store cold case or in a picturequse side walk café, every single bit of it was amazing.

The only food pitfall was the Roman incident, where to be fair, I share some blame.

The sun seems hotter in Rome, and that should be considered when slowly eating creamy meals outside. The bulk of my carbonara dish was perfect. And though the last few bites seemed “off,” I persisted. Yadda yadda yadda, the next few hours of my life were scary. 35 million people visit Rome annually. And as mentioned previously, no bathrooms.

All I could imagine was me violently throwing up in some corner of historical significance and being an instant viral social media mockery. Instead, I was cussed in more languages that I could decipher as a pushed my way past 20 people to get in a restroom in McDonald’s. I felt horrible for doing so, but I realized I was going to negatively impact their day in one way or another and this seemed slightly less traumatizing for them all.

But aside from that, the foods and coffees were so good it was perplexing. I ate every single thing I could. One day I had pistachio icecream in a surreal “food court” one floor above hardware in a department store. Then after maybe 30 minutes of meandering, I had a serving of fresh churros and dipping chocolate. This may surprise you, but none of that is on my food plan.

 I have no ragrets (not even one letter). But there has been some aftermath.

“Oh, are you that guy now?” the gravely voice of Dirty asks as I’m forcing he and Gus to participate in my effort at Neapolitan pizza. “Yes. Yes, I am” I say as I trim basil off of the first basil plant I’ve ever owned.

Don’t get me wrong. I can feed people. The fact that the boys made it to adulthood are proof of that. But actually cooking is something different. Food tours reaffirms that.

The day we got back, I looked for a cooking class in town. It has to be more than luck that I immediately found one very close to work that is “of traditional Neapolitan and Sicilian cooking.” I’m signed up. Obviously.

I’ve also lost all manners in my search for how to resolve my coffee grief. So far as to ask some poor woman who let slip she’d lived in Italy for 5 years how much she spent on coffee maker. I don’t know much about social graces, but I’m pretty sure that’s a bad thing to do.

I hear the longing for food that good will last. I’m kind of hoping it won’t since so far I’m in to this with a new Kitchen Aid and several bonus pounds. And I’m saddened that I hadn’t been there to taste all the food goodness sooner. But we’ll see where all this goes.

In the meantime, if you want to help prevent me from poor manners in social settings, please share with me the ways you make “some serious gourmet shit” in the way of coffee.

Thanks for reading! Go to Italy/Spain/Portugal!

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I Confess

“Wow. You’re going on a Jubilee year” said a co-worker whose words did not register with me at all. He was excited for us. I had no idea what he was talking about.

To plagarise information about religious events straight reverend google:

A jubilee is a special year of remission of sins, debts and universal pardon. In the Book of Leviticus, a jubilee year is mentioned as occurring every 50th year during which slaves and prisoners would be freed, debts would be forgiven and the mercies of God would be particularly manifest.

That’s right, there’s 49 other years we could’ve chosen with less religious significance. But by accident we chose a jubilee year.

Random peer’s elation about our totally randomly chosen time for this event was probably the precise moment I thought that I probably need to make sure I’m not behaving in a way that would get me struck by lightning.

As you know, I decided to do The Camino because it sounded cool. 499,000 people made this official pilgrimage last year. Google also taught me that this pilgrimage has been ongoing since medieval days as an act of atonement, devotion, purification, or penance. Me,…picked it because IT SOUNDED COOL.

The last thing I want to do is to make light of anyone’s religious journey regardless of the ways they’re working on it. It occurred to me that just walking to walk could do that. I’ve been intentional in trying to avoid over-researching what we’re in for, but have seen enough to know that lots of mental expansion or spiritual growth even for those trying to avoid it. Nonetheless, you know,…wanting to avoid the lightning got me looking at some things.

I was baptized Catholic at 4. In 1994 I did the Catholic protocol to become fully fledged. Brian wanted to get married in a church and I was Catholic-ish so I represented us on that front. Kind of like when your friend has a Costco Card but you don’t.

The ritual of mass and dedicated weekly focus on trying to be a good person set well with me, but not enough that I stuck with it. I took the kids for a while when they were little, but knew I was missing the mark in giving them a church foundation when pre-schooler Daniel asked “who’s the naked guy?” referring to the crucifix in the front of the sanctuary.

Getting ready for this trip got me looking at the end point, the Cathedral at Santiago de Compostela. They have beautiful services there and out of nowhere, it occurred to me, I should probably go through mass like a proper pilgrim when we get there.

This led to me calling the church where they just give you an appointment with a priest who references Star Wars in regular speech and in his fancy Mass chat. He let me know my proverbial card only required one punch to be able to fully participate, confession.

So we’re clear, I haven’t been to confession in 30 years. To say I was excited about the thought would be a lie. Which, if you didn’t know is something you’re supposed to confess when you do. Regularly.

I won’t pretend I’m a theologian or fully understand any of it, but if you’re thinking any ill about confession it bears noting that Team Catholic doesn’t corner the market on the benefits of making sure people don’t try to resolve things in isolation.

In the many years I’ve worked in Child Welfare, the families that consistently do best are the ones who stop trying to pretend they can hide their problems and reach out for support. Since the dawn of time, people have done well to get out of their heads and share their woes out loud. Friends, therapists, bartenders, sober sponsors, dogs, hairdressers, and much more have also heard a lot of confession.

The trip is soon, and I was running out of time to do the dang thing. My increasingly ridiculous reasons why I “couldn’t” get there told me I was procrastinating. I missed one opportunity because I wanted to repaint the garage door but Brian used all the paint. No, that certainly does not make sense, but it was an excuse I used nonetheless.

Yesterday, I dragged my sinning ass down there filled with terror. I got there in time to see the priest walking in to the church across the parking lot. My internal utterances were worthy of a separate confession of their own.

I didn’t know there was a line. When people entered behind me and figured out that I was a noob they offered to let me go ahead. I politely waved them off whilst thinking “it’s been 30 years, another couple minutes will be okay.”

Having other transgressors patiently waiting there was comforting. I was a great reminder that we all fuck up in our own ways and it’s frankly self-centered to think otherwise. That whole “everyone is fighting a battle that you know nothing about” mantra is real.

I leaned against the cool of the church walls taking it all in. The stained glass windows at Sacred Heart in Anderson are really fricking cool. There was enough break in the cloudy day for the sun to be caught in every angle giving each vibrant color a chance to show off. The sanctuary was filled with a repeating song that stirred the soul with its beauty. I didn’t consider where the repeating hallelujah came from, but the social worker/manager in me recognizes white noise machine tactics when she sees them. My office has a need to buffer noise. I turn on the ocean at least once a day to cover some conversation.

I was glad to know there was a sound buffer because 30 year confession gaps was about to hit like a napalm air strike.

My turn was getting increasingly closer when suddenly the angelic singing voices stopped. Sacred Heart church was built in 1956. I’m not sure the current rules of acoustics for privacy applied at that time. From my spot waiting to get into the confessional, I could hear murmurs. The priest came out, took a Bluetooth speaker off a shelf, fiddled with it, then declared mostly to himself that the battery died.

My eyes immediately went upward to the sunshine illuminated stained glass Jesus at the top of room. I’m not sure the degrees of mysticism I believe in, but I instantly thought the dying speaker was an act of humor. I giggled in my head and may have said another curse worthy of it’s own confession.

My time came and it really was painless. I’m sure he’s heard it all and again, it would be offensive on my part to think my wrongdoings or myself are special. There was no bell that rang loudly proclaiming me as the sinner of the week or anything.

I’m not sure what happens next for me in any of this, but I’m glad that I did it and I’m glad that it was a random side quest that popped up out of nowhere on what I was just taking a cool walk.

If you’re in the market for some confessing, I highly recommend it. You may just want to bring along a battery pack to support that speaker.

Thanks for reading!      

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I’m Going for a Walk

There I was. Having burgers and chat in the beauty of a July night in Rio Dell last summer.

There’s truly something magical about leaving the 100 plus degree heat of the valley of home to do car show things (even with a still smashed Camaro) with old friends in the backyard of their childhood home on the fiercely steep banks of the Eel River.

The friend is Big A. His uncle was there and with very little fanfare, he mentioned he’d taken some walk in France and Spain called “The Way.”

Now, it bears mentioning that it’s not been my forever life that I have to try and do new things. But certainly in the last decade, it’s been a mission of mine. Our time on this rock is too short to not try things. Some of these past things have been marathons, hiking Mt. Shasta, PADDLE triathalons (I swim like a rock), 100 mile bike races, body building competitions, etc. Each one of my little experiments has been really great. But at some point, ye olde body isn’t going to tolerate learning new aggressive activities. So, a walk in a place I’ve never been caught my ear.

“Uncle Mike” took a long walk on his trip. Turns out, there’s a lot of “ways” that are The Way. They all lead to Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain and go by the general name of The Camino. This cathedral was built in 1211 and is allegedly the final resting place of St. James the Great. Of course, I knew none of this 8 months ago, but it sounded like a cool thing to do.

So yadda yadda yadda, next week we go to Spain and will be walking 72 miles to see an old church. Uncle Mike, and many MANY other “pilgrims” walk much farther than that. Many people take as much as six weeks to walk hundreds of miles. We’re going a shorter but albeit still official pilgrimage distance from Sarria to Santiago. Our chosen route is walked by around 200,000 people each year. Which I predict means it will feel a little bit like walking through Costco for about 6 hours a day.

If you know anything about me, my routines are rigid to say the least. I’ve never been to Europe. I’ve never stayed in a hostel, I’ve never planned on being gone that long and certainly never not known where I’ll stay. I mean, I’m the person who will google a restaurant in town before going so I can look at the menu and plan my meal.

The Camino is intended to be the exact opposite of that. Going with the flow, relying on the kindness of others, and experiencing life on it’s terms instead of on the terms that give the illusion of control are the objectives. Essentially, everything I’m not.

Only time will tell how this will go, but even prep for it has been a series of unexpected gifts.

For example, I didn’t know what rucking is, but because of prep for this adventure it’s now my new identity.

This trip will require that we carry everything we need for 2 weeks on us. Between my food and clothes, I carry more to work on a gym day than I’m planning to carry on this trip. Even though I’m planning for a light pack, I don’t want to be the person who slows Brian and I down by being unaccustomed to backpacking. This led me to walking with my pack on with weight in it (rucking). Since 2/16 I have walked 190 miles with 25 pounds on my back. To use the professional terminology, rucking is “the shit.” It was very hard at first, then with practice became meditative and (if you can believe this) replaced 3 days of gym going/week for me. Just walking around has me feeling stronger than I could have guessed possible. Who knew? I mean aside from the militaries who’ve used it for training for centuries. And I guess outdoorsmen and whatnot. I know I looked like an absolute psychopath wandering around my hood, parking structures, downtown, neighborhoods near the grocery story, County Administration (!) and the like with a pack on, but feeling ready was worth it.

As for some of the other unanticipated side benefits, I’ll save those for later. It’s time to get in one of the last couple rucks before the adventure.

Thanks for reading!