“Ugh, my underwear is still moist,” Fabian said (FOR CONTEXT - the dingy hostel didn’t have a dryer, and it was raining outside, so we hung out laundry inside overnight. It didn’t all dry.).
I snickered and he looked confused. “Oh, uh, it’s a joke in the US that people HATE the word ‘moist.’”
“Why…do they hate a word?”
“I don’t know, they just think it sounds gross.”
“So how would you describe a cake?”
“I don’t know, maybe it’s just contextual.”
“Mmm, some people can’t stand it at all,” Katie confirmed.
Ever since, he has said “moist” as often as he can...
While the hostel was gross and unfit for drying clothes, it was empty of other pilgrims, which was sad. However, we could actually have our own rooms. Meaning Katie slept in long enough for me to actually walk with her for once (I am STRUGGLING to wake up here. This has only been a problem for me in the last year. I've always been an early riser).
When Katie and I stopped at a restaurant, I had lunch and Katie justified my food decisions.
"I ordered shrimp pasta and a chocolate milkshake," I said. "And yea, the hostess gave me a weird look. But you know what? Did she walk here from Lisbon?"
"Nope," Katie said sassily. "I don't think she did."
Into the restaurant, walked Friedhelm and Lydia, the older German couple I have been seeing since before Porto. Friedhelm admired my milkshake (which ended up being a hot pudding with whip cream? Idk.). They sat next to us and each ordered a beer.
These two are “Camino famous.” Everyone knows who they are and loves them. Through the Camino grapevine, we have learned they are in their 70s. Lydia is quiet. She clearly understands English, but doesn't speak it much. Friedhelm is much more extroverted and speaks excellent English. He always jokes that Katie and I are so much faster than them, but we tell them they are not very slow because obviously we keep meeting up.
“We take lots of breaks,” he said. “You cannot overwork the machine.” He has said similar phrases to me throughout this trip. I don't think he knows the reasons why I am on the Camino right now, but I am trying to internalize his phrases for when I'm home.
Don't overwork the machine if you wanna be a badass 75-year-old pilgrim.
Katie and I continued walking. We knew we would be crossing the Spanish-Portuguese border that day, but our guidebook has been shit, and with all of the terrible wifi, I have run out of my international data plan. We weren't sure when we could cross the border.
"When can I start speaking some fucking Spanish?!" Katie exclaimed.
I really did try to learn some Portuguese before coming to, you know, Portugal. But Duolingo did me dirty. I know I'm in the their country and it's their language, and I respect that. But I must know more Spanish than I give myself credit for because I have never struggled this much to communicate. The "bom días" and "bom caminhos" kept coming through Valença, Portugal. Our last stop before Spain.
It was a beautiful walk out of the city, where we could see Spain across the river.
"Please be a scary bridge, please be a scary bridge," Katie muttered as we approached the river.
If you've followed our adventures before, you know that Katie does not like heights. But this bitch likes to scare herself. Since her 40th birthday, she's been trying to cross a bridge that scares her. She crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, but the guard rails were so high it didn't scare her.
We stepped onto the bridge. "Is this the last time we say 'obrigado'?" I asked.
"I can't wait for 'gracias,'" Katie said.
We started to cross the bridge.
"Are you okay?" I asked her.
"Yeah, I'm fine. This one isn't scaring me," she said.
"Oh great," I said, and then instantly tripped.
"Oh my God!" Katie screamed. "Okay that scared me."
On the other side, we arrived in Tui, Spain.
"ETHPAÑIA!" we yelled (the "s" sound in Spain is "th").
We made our way to the public albergue, and right before we were there met Fabian. As we were checking in, a couple Katie knew from Quebec walked in. They happily greeted each other. Right behind the Quebecians, was Michael. We all excitedly welcomed him too.
"Do you feel the magic?" Katie asked Fabian. "The albergue magic? That's why we do this."
On Fabian's second day walking, his first with us, he struggled to stop walking at "only" 2 p.m.
"Do you have somewhere in particular you want to stay?"
He didn't.
"Do you have to be in Santiago by a certain time?"
He had plenty of time.
"So what's the rush with today?"
"It's just not a full day of walking."
"The Camino isn't about the walking, it's about the people," I had told him. Apparently Michael had also said something similar.
"The Camino is about whatever it is for you. Whatever will be fun for you," Katie said.
"Germans don't do things for fun, we do them for sports," he has kept saying, teasing. (And now I see my workaholism might be rooted in my German ancestry...kidding, maybe.)
But the man has slowed down so much, he arrived at the Tui albergue with snacks for all of us and arts and crafts. He brought chocolate covered rice crackers he wanted us to try.
"Hmm, it's sweet and dry," Katie said. "Is that like a German?" she asked, good naturedly.
The German jokes have kept coming. It's hard to avoid...literally most of the trail is full of Germans. I was DRAGGING ASS the next day, and I overheard Katie telling Fabian, "my stereotype of a German is someone in lederhosen, with blonde braids, and a beer in her hand."
"Sounds like it," Fabian said.
"And no joy?" I added, lagging behind them.
"No, with a big mass of beer, there is definitely joy," he said.
I could not wake up. Even with my high caffeine intake.
"Do you have the saying in English, 'the foot bus'?" Fabian asked.
"Do you mean the struggle bus?" Katie clarified.
"No, the foot bus. In Germany, we say if you miss the actual bus, you always have your foot bus."
Motherfucker.
"Well I've been taking the foot bus from Lisbon and I'm tired," I told him.
And hell no we don’t take the foot bus in America...don't you know our stereotype?
While I haven't missed American food, I will say, I am sick of inhaling cigarette smoke. The only thing I miss about the States is how uncommon smoking cigarettes has become, and how regulated it is regarding where you can smoke. To each their own, of course. But the amount of public smoking here - at dinner, on the trail, EVERYWHERE - has Katie and I coughing up a lung. I stopped at a pharmacy for some throat spray. But at the time, the throat irritation was just adding to my drag assing.
During one of our run-ins with Friedhelm and Lydia, Friedhelm said, "some days the bones are heavier than others." "My bones are stones today," I told him. He laughed and told me to get some rest.
(A bagpipe player in the woods. Friedhelm and Lydia are the couple walking in front of us.)
Moments later Katie looked at me and giggled.
"Doesn’t she look like a little boy right now?" She asked Fabian.
No idea what she's talking about
At dinner that night, I told Katie, "I keep wanting to say 'obrigado' to the waiter. The whole time I struggled with not saying 'gracias,' and just now it's become a habit."
"Nope not me girl, I dropped that," she said. "Gracias!"
Comments