Friendly Friday

Welcome back friends!  It's time for another installment of Friendly Friday, and today, as promised, we're focusing on Santiago!  Be prepared for some awful shots...with a lot of smiles!  Since there are quite a few, I've broken them into little groups:

First off, we've got the obligatory "pose in front of the Cathedral" shots- this is where we discovered lots of people we'd gotten separated from along the way.  Sadly we didn't get pictures with everyone (we turned around in our first few minutes in Santiago, and ran into Christian the Viking), but we did manage a few:

We found Marco!

This is Alex from Brazil

See--everyone made it safe and sound from the Cow Town pictured a few entries ago!

Marian, who gave us little salt and pepper shakers (really really little) and awesome supper companionship

Sarah, from Venezuela, walking into Santiago with Praline and Roland.  They made it too!

I may also have kissed the donkey.  There is no pictorial evidence of this.



Yeah...Angelita posed in front of the Cathedral too.  That's actually a horde of tourists, not pilgrims, surrounding her.

  The next batch of photos are from Girls Night Out!  Lindsey left Superdad to watch the soccer game, and we wandered the town.  We even found a carnival with cotton candy!  After weeks of pilgrim meals and pilgrim clothes, it was nice to be sort of dressy and have a few drinks.... This is the section of this post where picture quality goes noticeably downhill...I'm not sure whether to blame our relaxed attitude, or the sangria.

Me, Lindsey and Ayeleen.  There's another comparison shot where we stick our tongues out after eating the cotton candy.  Suffice it to say that our tongues are the colour of Lindsey's shirt.

Drinks and tapas, just the five girls (look closely...Angelita's here too)! 

This may mark the point in the evening where things took a silly turn



Angelita's in her cups

And now, we've got some final shots of the people who made our trip amazing along the way!

Jana's buddy, who asked how she was doing every time we met him on the road...I sort of think that may have been the extent of his English.  Still...totally awesome person!

And here with his travel buddy and Superdad!

Our Kiwis!  Such sweet ladies!

Keith!  You may remember I mentioned Keith in a post awhile back (he was the one hiding his Spanish language abilities and leaving Jana and I to order God knows what from a tapas menu).  Although we actually spent a lot of time with him, this is the only photo we have of Keith--taken at about 9 in the morning, just as he arrived in Santiago.  We took him for a drink.  What you can't see in this photo is the beer and wine that we are drinking at 9 AM, (or the German lady who is sitting with us...I'm clearly not a good documentor of social events).  Don't judge!  It's at least later than we drank from the wine fountain...and arrivals in Santiago need to be celebrated with a drink, regardless of time of day.

And, in my last section, we have photos robbed from Lindsey.  Thanks Lindsey!  Since we weren't so great at getting everything, I've included a few from her photo library to help give a fuller view of the Santiago experience:

Here we have me (hiding behind Ayeleen), Jana, Lindsey, Brian (from Texas--he walked from Paris!), Daniel (the blond boy on the left) and his dad Marco (aka Barefoot Man--see--no shoes!).  This was our arriving in Santiago celebratory drink (as opposed to Girls Night celebratory drinks, which took place later in the evening).  These were the most expensive drinks I think we ever ordered...but it was worth it to sit in the square and meet everyone as they wandered by--later in the day we saw Irish Paul, a number of German pilgrims, the Danish Mother/Daughter duo, and Mark (who is again not pictured, but is English and kept us company along the way until he was derailed by illness in Léon). 

This is perhaps the most unflattering picture of me from the entire Camino.  This is another in front of the Cathedral shot, but at night, and includes Lindsey, Brian, Ayeleen, and Anya from Belgium

It's been so amazing preparing the past few Friendly Friday posts, as I've gotten to remember all of the amazing people that made the Camino so...amazing!  It's also made me a little melancholy though, because I've realized just how many people we didn't get pictures of, or contact information for...people who were memorable, who made us smile, who helped us out, who really made the experience what it was.  People like South African Mike, Ricardo, Jean-Marc and the wheelbarrow tourers, Mr. Sligo (yes, we didn't get his name, but we learned where he came from), the Canadian gals Tatyana and Nicole, Ogden and his wife (whose name is entirely escaping me right now)...and there are so many more!  Already some of the clarity of my mental images is fading (thank goodness for my journal...otherwise, I think many details would be hopelessly muddled).  So, kids, the moral of this post is: the Camino is amazing and life-changing and wonderful...so take a camera and a notebook with you, so that you can remember as many things as possible when you get back...and keep the Camino alive within you for awhile.

And that's it for this Friday!  Next week I'm going to try (third time's the charm, right?) to post some more fun shots of statues, signs etc from the Camino, and will finish off Spain's last Friendly Friday with a post featuring our day trip to Finisterre.

Adios, Amigos!  Go out and enjoy the sunshine!  Or whatever weather you're blessed with today!  After all, as Ogden told us on the Camino, "Life is short, so you should go slow and appreciate every moment".

-K-