Entries this day: Today _Gin_in_Santiago_de_Compostela!!!!!! paypal sally

Today

4:23pm JST Friday 17 September 2004

Cool!

This morning I slept until 12:38pm when Erik from Nova called me. His fellow Japanese student was looking for an English teacher. The Japanese lesson they attend is within five minutes walking distance of my building so I walked over, and met his friend. We arranged to have a language exchange English for Mandarin twice a week! That should help jumpstart my Mandarin learnin'

Today my Japanese teacher cancelled our lesson because she worked until 7:30am this morning. I had been mentally preparing to ride my bike out there, visualizing the route in my mind as I looked at the map.

One thing I noticed during this process: I wasn't using any words - no Japanese, no English, not even Tagalog. Just visual images in my head and in lines on the map.

- - - -

Erik and I went to kaiten sushi for lunch - the shop was pretty big, but there were very few customers during the 2-3pm timeslot. We talked about language a bit and movies, I Robot, and Will Smith.

On the way home, I asked him about the origin of a statue that depected a hen standing on cat standing on a dog standing on a horse, all of whom were howling, neighing, clucking, meowing, not necessarily in that order.

I asked him the origin and he didn't know and a woman came up and started talking to us. She wanted to practice English and told us in very broken English how she had gone to Nova for a while but didn't learn as fast as her cohorts, so she quit. Erik and I guessed later that she didn't move forward because she talked more than listened. We tried to correct her a few times, but she was locked on her method of speaking.

She told us, though, her version of the origin. There was a bad man and he wasn't scared by the horse neighing or the dog howling, etc, but when all four of the animals got together, he was scared away. And that's how teamwork got rid of the bad man.

- - - -

Watched the latter half of Rabbit Proof Fence with Shoko and Jen. Shared drinks and mango pudding with them. Jen was chopping pumpkins for pumpkin soup. Oh, some big green zucchini for pumpkin soup. Good fun.

Gin in Santiago de Compostela!!!!!!

5:04pm JST Friday 17 September 2004

I haven't read all of it yet, but this is from my inspiring friend Gin who is walking across France. Fantastic and fantastic storytelling.

Hello Friends!  Yea, after all this trail blazing, finally getting so
close to the "end of the earth" and back again in the city of the
Apostle St. James.  It has been 13 nights since i entered Galicia.
Oh, what a land of mine.  It is not nearly as ancient as it was 14
years ago.  Nothing like our modern times to sweep tradition under the
carpet.
  
Leaving Ribadeo, the first major thing i saw was the Cantabric
Sea. The cliffs are high and huge rock formations poke out of the
water. It was a wild sea, a no-working day for fisher-people.  The
second thing i saw was the hostel, or auberge, for the pilgrims.  I
started walking very fast and they ran outside and called me back.  It
seemed an absurdity; "No, no, i know it will probably rain, i have a
tent, thank you, i will see you in Santiago." It sounds so a-social.
I should have stopped at least for a stamp for my Santiago
"credential".  The third thing i saw was a tanker, "Marja", that had
just run a-ground in the bay.  The crowd was gathering and the
helicopters had not gotten there yet.  The last week i was walking on
my last leg of the "camino" in 2002, the "Prestige" sank off the coast
of Galicia at a depth of over 5000 meters, with a full load of oil,
and petrochemical fertilizers and insecticides.  They are still
cleaning it up, it is job that will take mother nature at least a
hundred years to finish.  "Marja" was just freed from the grip of the
bay of Ribadeo yesterday, after they unloaded 1500 tons of paper
paste.

A couple of miles down the road, and way before dusk, i found an
unforgettable campsite.  The waves crashing against the cliffs about
15 meters below sounded just like thunder!  And the breaking surf,
over 4 meters tall, was as blue as Caribbean waters.  It was almost
scary, that beautiful violent sea, that breeze that was throwing the
sea foam up on the cliffs, i was covered in a layer of salt film
within 5 minutes.  I sat on the cliffs until way after dark watching
tow boats slowly approaching from far away, and soundless helicopters
that had amazing maneuvering abilities approaching from floating
landing pads.The thundering of the waves sounded occasionally like jet
engines.

The next day i put my swim suit on and thought to myself, "do i
dare?".  I walked passed 20 beautiful beaches, one named "the
cathedrals" because of all the caves that have been carved out of the
cliffs by the waves.  In the caves i could see definite striations of
quarts, which is not so rare, they say that over 30% of the earths
crust is composed of silicone dioxide, but i could see where people
had chipped rock off, those caves were not so long ago crystal coated!
Oh, beautiful polished red and green stone!  I finally found my beach,
it was not occupied by a lifeguard that could tell me not to swim (it
was a red flag day), and i body surfed for hours!  That was the 3rd
best body surf experience of my life, well, probably the best, but the
3rd biggest waves i have ever ridden.  They tossed me around like a
dolly!  And the water was not so cold.

It was, as it always is, hard to leave the sea side.  But it was a
really good send off.

I entered the Galician country side.  I sacrificed the "Camino del
Norte" (the Northern Way) that goes over mountains and through the
woods for highways and the equivalent to Texan farm-to-market roads.
That was a definite sacrifice.  But the rewards were great!  Averaging
about one sierra range day.  The hills were mountains by my standards
(1600-800 meters high).  The first few days were quite shocking, the
traditional celtic forests of Galicia are no more.  Clear cuts and
never-ending rows of small eucalyptus trees.  The eucalyptus was
introduced in Galicia from Australia about 150 years ago.  But for the
rest, the people and the sweet smell of eucalyptus and mint reminded
me of my adventures in Galicia long ago.

The third night i was walking again on the small roads and entered a
village about 6 in the evening.  The important things while in
civilization are: provisions and phone calls.  There was a store and a
pay phone, and...they were setting up a stage in the center of town!
It was fairly early, but before i could pack my groceries in my
backpack, the daughter of the store owner had called a friend of hers
over to tell me of their adventures on the road to Santiago this
spring.  During the week that it took them to walk here from there,
the guy had to go to the hospital due to the huge and painful blisters
on his feet.  I told him that it was at least one month walking before
i realized that the worst thing to do is to pop the blisters.  To
transform a closed wound into a open wound is to pour salt into it.
Blisters are also friends. Before i knew it, the mayor drove by and
they were all arranging for me to sleep in the town sports hall.  And
there was a folkloric dance that evening!  In modern times a dance is
folkloric, in earlier times a dance was a party.  It was a blast!  I
had a front row seat. The dance began with the really little kids and
celtic dance after dance, they worked their way up to the dancers that
were my age (20 and 30 +ers).  They were so good!  Then 6 women
playing bag pipes, a woman bass drum player (that drum has a special
name), one or two women playing shells- (the same "conch" shells that
represent the pilgrim on the road to Santiago) scrapping 2 of them
together in rhythm with the drum, one woman playing a patcharan bottle
(a liquor bottle with ridges on it) by scraping a stick over the
ridges, flutes, or penny whistles and 4 accordions. They would play a
song and then half of the group would dance a celtic dance and
everyone would change instruments and the rest would to dance.  I was
in heaven!  There were 4 groups in total.  3 from the region, all
wearing the traditional dress.  Everyone in knickers, and lots of
layers. The women in long knickers under their long, thick wool
skirts. One of the last dances on the 3 Galician groups everyone wore
wooden shoes!  Was i impressed.  I have a pair of wooden shoes, i wear
them to work in my garden.  Ron and i share a pair at the house cause
it is easy to slip out of our house shoes and into the wooden shoes
when we go outside for something ( i.e. to go to the shed or take out
the trash).  They are not really comfortable shoes to walk in, let
alone dance in! They sure do sound good clapping quickly against the
wood of the stage though.  Then a group from Portugal danced.  Oh, one
of our next vacations will surely be to Portugal.  What a jolly fo!
lk!  40 in the group.  Definitely not Celtic, but absolutely magic.
All of the elements, including a figure that must have represented the
grim reaper appeared in different corners.  A married couple, poor
farmers, wealthy patricians, very old people, and so on representing
every aspect of society and all in old traditional garb.  And the
music, so far as i could understand, was thanking everything.  Circle
dancing is so fun!  After the dance i was invited by everyone to come
to the after show dinner.  It was obvious that the Portuguese are at
least 10 degrees more lively than their Galician neighbors.  They
continued to sing through out the whole dinner. The Portuguese
insisted that i sit at their table. It didn't matter we did not
understand everything each other said.  There were little sausage
breads and they kept playing with them saying that in Portugal the
sausages were "this big" (big)! , whereas here the sausages were "this
big" (little sausages).  Oh god we laughed hard about everything.
They were going back to sleep in the convent where i would have been
sleeping had i stayed on the "Camino del Norte".  We laughed really
hard about that as well, definitely no place for a bunch of big
singing Portuguese sausages.  After they left i stayed to help clean
up the mess and pack in the stage.  Late to bed, but still early to
rise.
 

One day i was in a big hurry, my feet started to really hurt cause
walking over the paved street all day is painful and my withdrawal
from my honey was rough.  I was hearing the wind off of my shoulder
and kept whisping through the hills thinking about my endurance test
for the forest fire fighter certification.  The test that every forest
fire fighter is required to take at the beginning of every season is
walking very far with a very heavy load on your back in less than 45
minutes.  I am anything but a fast walker and it takes an enormous
mental effort on my part to keep focusing on walking fast to get far
quickly.  But i figured if i could keep it up, i would be back close
to Ron in no time at all.  That lasted one day.  I walked right past a
really big village festival, and it was 9 in the evening.  All of the
festivals here are to honor the Saint of the village.  This was the
fiesta of St. Carmen. !  I was determined to make it to a pay phone to
call home.  I walked till about 11, to a village with a pay phone.
After i talked to Ron, i was ok again.  I secured a place to sleep
behind the bar, with the chickens and the farm equipment.  Sleeping
behind the bar is probably not the best plan for me, i have been an
insomniac since i lived in the Pyrenees, and would much rather be in
the middle of the action than tossing in my sleeping bag listening to
it all. With the village locals we made it back to the festival of
St. Carmen and later to a disco in a town on the coast. Among the 4,
three were about my age and Jose.  Jose is 82 with a liver of steel.
He had a flamenco song for every subject that came up.  Sometimes the
guys would tell him to stop singing, then at other times they would
ask him to sing this song, or that one, one in Gallego, one in
Castellan, he had a very good gypsy accent when he want! ed to.  Jose
was a great dancer, I am glad i have pictures.  It was like running
with the wolves.
  
Needless to say, i did not sleep that night and had quite a headache
in the morning.  The next day after stopping to take a small nap on
the side of the road on the top of a mountain i had the inspiration to
abandon my plan to walk the "tour of Galicia" around the entire costal
region and finally winding my way around to Finisterre, and then back
toward Santiago.  No, i looked at the map and started planning my
route directly toward where i am now.
 
For three days my path took me through beautiful hills.  A purple
mountain plant is in bloom that painted the hills and valleys purple.
The same plant, but 3 very distinct colors of purple. I finally
entered a region where there were oaks and chestnuts and beautiful
forests and waterfalls, and once i scared a large hoofed animal in the
bushes, but i did not see the animal as well as he saw me.  It has
rained every day i have been in Galicia, except yesterday, the day i
walked into Santiago.  But as i was walking, now directly toward
Santiago, all of Spain flooded. To the west and immediately 15 miles
to the east and to the south 20 miles it was raining so hard cars were
totally submerged in the streets.  I did not get any of those rains.
Just sprinkles.  I have adopted the habit of sleeping between the
hours of 5 and 9 in the morning (even though i usually go to bed
around dark) so i get on the road about ! 11.  If it is overcast that
is ok.  If the sun is going to shine, walking in the heat of the day
is very difficult.  I can only walk about 25 kilometers a day with the
22+ Kilograms in my back pack, so even if i start late and take lots
of breaks i get there about dark.  That is good for me, cause dusk,
the last light of the day, is my favorite to walk in.  It is my
favorite time of day. Mysterious and full of change.  In a perfect
world i find a great place for my tent about 30 minutes after the sun
has set. That is not always the case.  Sometimes i just don't feel
like it, so i keep going.  But in Spain for some reason i feel more
comfortable asking permission to sleep on someone's land.  In France i
never felt so dedicated about asking permission. For several nights in
a row the electricity had been knocked out in a storm that i had just
missed.  I could see families huddled around a candle in the kitch! en
when walking by.  For those few nights it was hard to find a place to
camp.  The third night of the storms, i hit the storm, just as i was
walking into a town that was back on the "Camino del Norte".  My boots
had just filled with water from the water running down my legs when i
ducked under a roof of an industrial building on the outskirts of
town.  Sitting in that storm, watching the water pour out of the sky
and flood the streets made me think of my dad and his love of watching
a good rain storm.  He really likes to watch a storm with someone
sitting next to him, i guess i sat there and pretended he was sitting
next to me. When there was a break in the storm i walked into town in
the drizzle.  I met a man whose daughter had studied in Georgia, fell
in love, got married and stayed.  He was fairly young but early on he
had told me that he only had one child.  In Spain it is the
responsibility of the oldest daugh! ter to care for the parents.  This
is very heavy and very serious, and part of every retirement plan on
top of being essential for eventual elder care.  I could feel his fear
and i know how far Georgia is from here, and Texas, and Oregon. I
assured him that you could take a Gallega out of Galicia, but you
could not take the weight of her cultural and familiar responsibility
out of that Spanish woman.  I bet that she will go back to care for
her folks when they are old and need her.  He walked me to the church
and introduced me to the nuns and told them i was looking for the
auberge.  Mass was about to begin and i was in the mood.  I actually
attend more mass (in the last 7 years) than most Catholics i know. It
was a Monday evening.  It was a day celebrating Jesus' mother, Mary.
The priest was very eloquent in his worship of the mother(s).  I was
really getting into it an! d the electricity went out. I thought for a
minute he forgot where he was in his sermon.  But he came down into
the darkened church, between the pews and delivered the rest of his
sermon old fashioned style without an amplifier.  That made it even
better for me.  I lit a whole row of candles for my loved ones after
that.

My next days walk led me to a payphone where i called my sister and
chatted a whole phone card away.  After that it was dark and she
encouraged me to stop there and ask someone if i could stay in town.
There was a large monastery.  It happens to be a very historical stop
on the "Camino del Norte".  The pilgrims insisted that i sleep inside
and not bother with my tent.  Yea, a town named for it's monks, called
Sobrado dos Monxes, the church, and it's huge complex was built in 900
a.d. and at one time was equipped to house over 3000 pilgrims at once!
The place was awesome. Most of the hostels are free for pilgrims.  At
least when i was here in 2002, all of them were free.  Now most of
them, at least on the "French Route", charge at least 5 Euros to stay
the night.  I think a big part of being a pilgrim is to leave things
right, at least as!  good as you found them if not better.  I do not
think it is or should be part of a Cistercian monks regimen to clean
up after pilgrims.  I think pilgrims, or any traveler, needs to find
it within us to be respectful and clean up after ourselves.  Not the
case here!  No one wants to be the last pilgrim out the door. It was
about the 5th or 6th "auberge" i had stayed at where i slept with
other pilgrims.  It is embarrassing, i stayed to clean almost half of
the hostel and thought about cleaning the whole thing, but it is a
problem that will not end with me.  The only solutions are to charge
money and pay someone to clean up, or collectively accept the
responsibility to clean up after ourselves.

    (two days later)( Wednesday, September 15, 2004)

The bars in Galicia are special.  Everywhere else in Spain, they have
"tapas" in most bars.  In Galicia there are occasionally tapas to be
found.  They don't mess around with trying to sell a snack.  They give
them away.  Cheese or bacon or sausage on bread, exotic assortment of
nuts, beans specialties from the kitchen in little bowls with
bread. They treat their customers right. I guess the idea is not to
eat your entire meal there, but they keep putting it in front of you
until you don't want any more.  And in every bar, at least in the
country, it was the bar-persons choice of whose money they would take
when it came time to pay the bill.  Everyone would whip their bills
out and laughingly say "my treat, take MY money!", it was difficult to
buy a round.  I guess i would stop in 2-4 bars a day.  Social time is
important, but bars are also handy to duck into to ! get out of the
rain or the sun, read the paper, to use the toilet, to get water,
drink a coffee, and later in the day a beer or two.  It is basically
only older men that sit in the bars.  I rarely spent a cent in the
cafes, and had many laughs.  It was mostly in the bars that people
would comment, "you have to have faith to walk from so far". Yea, it
is obviously a spiritual undertaking.  I think words like "faith" and
"god" carry heavy connotations.  I would try to expand the meanings
and to separate the two.  Just like an animal does not know about
"god", but has "faith" that she will survive and find everything she
needs, so will she be taken care of by "god". I met many gods along
the way. I never lost the feeling that someone (for lack of another
word) was listening to my thoughts.  The road has risen to my feet
every step of the way.  Everything that i needed was always there.  I
would often com! e to the point in the day where i swept my thoughts
out.  No word formations, not concrete thoughts, just breathing and
observing how things unfolded, and listening to the orchestra in the
silence.

The last day walking into Santiago was quite special.  In the morning
before i left my sleeping spot i heard what i thought were gunshots.
The hunters are out in herds with their mutt hunting dogs.  I respect
a clean shot much more than "bang!, bang!, bang, bang, bang, bang,
bang!" I thought, "go to the shooting range and sharpen up your shot
for goodness sakes".  I saw all the hunters driving by with barking
dogs in trailer-kennels.  Then i walked by a bar (yes, walked by) and
saw a bunch of young people dressed in Celtic garb.  About 5 minutes
later they set off a bunch of fire works in front of the bar then went
driving by beating their drum and waving and yelling, "10 more
kilometers to go!" (it was 20) So it turns out the shooting was
fireworks!

As the day went by, it became more difficult to continue.  It was also
the first sunny day since i was in Galicia.  I stopped about every
half mile to take a break and at one point i stopped by a brooke and
took a nap on top of a picnic table.  I seriously thought about
staying the night, but it was next to the highway.  In a great flood
of emotion i had remembered the state i was in when i came to Santiago
the first time.

It began with a love story.  I had been living in Alicante (on the
Mediterranean coast of Spain, Galicia is on the Atlantic coast) with a
man that i had fallen in love with on site.  Yea, "love at first
sight" exists.  The village was a rural, 2 bar, old fashioned dust
town, surrounded by ancient olive groves. There were possibly 100
residents, and another 200 people with weekend houses.  I turned 21
while i was there.  I had been in Europe for a year and a half.  6
months in Switzerland, 3 months in France, 6 months in Spain and the
rest in Germany, Holland, Greece and Denmark.  It had been all that
time since i had had a normal conversation.  A year and a half of
listening to languages, the most of which i understood nothing.  And
then the rural village in Alicante.  I was lectured everyday by the
village people.  It goes back to the oldest daughter thing. They would
greet me any time of the day saying something like, "hello, how are
your poor, lonely parents, when are you going to go care for them?".
I worked a little at a theatre-farm school where kids would come from
the cities to see what a sheep really looked like, then participate in
a play at the end of the day. I had a job taking care of a retarded
man, pissing-in-his-pants retarded.  He had taken an overdose of LSD
some years earlier.  One day while walking with him he busted out with
a very intelligent conversation.  That day i realized it was all an
act on his part, he hated working for a living.  Some days the village
people were nice, some days they were crazy.  But at night a few of us
would gather around a fire and sing while one of the guys played
guitar.  My boyfriend was not the singing type.  He was, and still is,
hyper intellectual.  When he speaks, half the time people d! o not
understand most of what he says because of his gigantic vocabulary.
He would be much better off as a university professor, than a gardener
in the country.  But he likes gardening.  He was patient with me, when
i met him the only sentence i could say in spanish was, "lets go dance
in the streets".  I only heard 3 words in english come out of his
mouth, "i love you". Anyway, during this time i developed some sort of
fissure in my consciousness.  My brain had been squeezed through so
many different languages and cultures and completely foreign
situations, i was seeing spirits around me all the time.  Don Juan
calls them "tumblers".  With a girlfriend in the village i started
practicing Alphabiotics, as far as i could go with out having any idea
of what i was doing.  I would lay my hands on her head and instantly
be transported into what must have been another dimension. White light
! and weightlessness.  I decided there i wanted to be a healer.

2 days before my 21st birthday my backpack, passport, leather jacket
and most importantly my medicine bag full of crystals that i had been
wearing around my neck since i was a child was stolen from the beach
while i was swimming.  The medicine bag was quite a blow, from which i
learned that i did not need to carry crystals, or music, that those
things were all around and within me.  It was however a great blow.
And the only American embassy in Spain is in Madrid. I slowly slipped
into depression.  About 4 months later i decided that i had to leave,
and i did.

I left him and went to Madrid to get a new passport. While staying
there i briefly met a girl named "Lucia".  We probably talked for less
than 30 minutes, but she was so kind and had a contagiously relaxing
manner. That woman is the reason i came to Santiago.  She was born
here.  I came here with a very heavy heart, it was raining the evening
that i pulled in. I had spent several weeks in a small house i had
squatted closer to the Portuguese boarder. I was just about broke when
i got here.  I walked into a bar, saw 3 young people sitting around a
long table, the young man in a black trench coat.  I walked up to them
and asked if they knew where a squat was.  One of the two women, said
something like, "no, but i have a dorm room and i am not going to be
using it for several months, here are the keys". So i walked the
streets, the parks and ! sat on the steps of the "Plaza de Quintana"
and recovered myself.  It was here i realized could speak Spanish.
They don't speak Castellan Spanish here, no, they speak Gallego, but
in Alicante they speak Valanciano, like Catalan.  Gallego is special,
but something between Castellan, Portuguese and French, and yet
something else.  My friends there in the Plaza were amazed that i
could understand.  And it was here that i learned that i am very funny
in this culture, more so than in any other.  Spanish, Gallego, friends
and lots of laughs were great medicine. In those times it was still
poor here, and everyone would sit together on the steps, passing liter
bottles of beer around and everything else we had.  All for one and
one for all.  I laughed harder here than almost anywhere else i can
remember.  I met several people that did not have a place to stay, so
before long we were 4 adults and one small chi! ld in the dorm room.
We would spend the days making music and crafts and trying to sell
them.

It was one day sitting there on the steps of the Plaza, next to the
Cathedral, that i asked a friend what all of those dirty, stinking
people with walking staffs were doing, and why did they look so
blissful and full of emotion?  I had never heard of the Camino de
Santiago.  He said that some had walked from as far away as Germany or
Holland, but the most from France.  It is just as crazy as it sounds.
I guess i thought it was funny, but i remember distinctly thinking
that i would never do something like that.

Not long after that we all left Santiago together.  The couple with
the child had a car and all of us that had made a home in the dorm
room left for the mountains.  The man that i had hooked up with was a
sheep herder and although he wanted me to come with him into the
mountains to work and stay with him, i was in no condition for another
serious relationship. The mountains the couple took me to was the
Pyrenees in Ariege where they dropped me off at a friend of their's.
I had about enough money for two bottles of wine.  They had two small
children and i told them i could work and that i would like to stay
with them.  (hi Freddy) And that is the story of how i got the idea to
do the Camino de Santiago, and the beginning of why i wanted to go
back to stay a winter in the Pyrenees.
 

The other day while walking toward Santiago it all came back to me,
just like that, and of course more.  The miles behind me, my motives
and the fact that i am giving myself to the end of this walk to grow
up a bit.  It was late before i made it back to the Plaza de Quintana.
I went right to buy a beer to take it to the steps, determined to find
someone there to drink it with.  I sat down, looked around to see that
wealth had poured into the city and that no one was sitting together
on the steps.  I wrote in my diary a little, ate olives for dinner and
sipped my beer alone.  The time passed and then they set off fire
works and started a light show on the side of the old convent in the
Plaza de Quintana!  The music was so loud it filled every crack of the
¬kasko viejo¬, the old city.  And the images they projected on the
wall was of the old celtic symbols, and other images that could!  be
found in dreams or along the way, and they projected a beautiful poem
by Rosalia de Castro called "Terra a Nosa" (this earth of ours), one
word or one phrase at a time.  The music and the lights and the images
and the warm air and "our spot" there on the plaza steps, and all the
months walking toward here, the power accumulated to begin such an
adventure, and the fact that it was not about getting to
Santiago... It is 14 years ago this month that i spent a month here.
I wept and was glad it was dark and the music was loud. Later I found
someone to drink the rest of my beer with.  It was very late before i
found a "pension", like a hotel, but more like an apartment.  A big
bath tub, a bidet, sink, porch, two beds and a kitchen for 15 Euro
bucks a night.

 September 16, 2004

The next day I got up and went to the pilgrims office.  Because i had
lost my pilgrims credential from France in the hours before i left the
house in Holland, and because i did not stop to get a stamp in
Ribadeo, i did not get my certificate.  The certificate is a very
important thing for pilgrims, and has been for almost a millennia.  I
got a Santiago stamp in my new credential and was happy.  I just file
certificates away anyway.  Till this point i had never read anything
over the camino.  I was waiting until i got here.  Mostly because
everyone has something to say, and there is so much history and
interesting points of interest.  I wanted to see it through my eyes,
in my own way.  I always thought that i will have the rest of my life
to read things over the Camino.  So, i went to another office of the
Camino de Santiago and asked for information.  The woman handed me
about 10 pam! phlets and then i asked her if there was a chance that
she knew something about the predecessor to the Camino de Santiago,
the prehistoric camino that goes to Finisterre.  She held herself just
this side of irate and explained to me that before they discovered the
tomb of St. James the Apostle in the 8th century A.D. there was
absolutely no camino. However, one of the pamphlets she gave me
explained in careful detail the old route, to the "Coast of the Dead".
The guy sitting behind the computer next to the lady at the camino
office was rolling his eyes and after i told the woman, "of course,
thank you" i asked him in a whisper if he knew anything about it and
he told me which book store to go to.  It was not that book store but
about 7 bookstores later that i found a section on Galicia in the
basement.  At one of the bookstores i did get a name of a professor of
ancient history in the department of geology and history of the!
University of Santiago.  I have been by his office several times
since, to no avail.  It is still summer vacation.  I found several
interesting books, the best of which i thought was "Os misteriosos
cami–os de Compostela" by Louis Charpentier. I stayed in the
library till closing time looking through all the books and learning
the ancient history of the camino.

The next day (the 14th of September) i stayed almost the whole day at
the cathedral.  I went to the first mass that was standing room only.
The bishop of Santiago conducted the mass.  All off the top of his
head, first in Latin, then in Italian, then Gallego then Castellan.
It was Santa Cruz day.  The cross that Jesus was crucified on is not
my favorite subject, but he said it was also a day to honor the poor
and the marginalized of the world and everyone that sticks themselves
on the cross.  He was very inspirational and eloquent in his service.
Then they lit the incense burner, it is said that the one in this
cathedral is the largest in the world.  It took 4 men to hoist it up
and then they started swinging the thing and it swung higher and
higher till it almost touched the very high ceiling above the arches
in the gothic cathedral.  It was beautiful.  I was still crying.

I waited in line and went through the "Holy Door", only opened on
Jubilee years, and gave the golden statue adorned with large precious
gems a hug.  There is a huge golden (or brass?) shell in the middle of
his back that presses against your breast plate when you give him a
big hug.  I felt that that was like a stamp, it felt good.  I did feel
a little like i was out of my place, but at the same time i was
hugging him for Father Jose in the Basque Country, my friends in
Mexico, Victoria, my friends in or from North Texas, everyone who i
had met along the way that asked me to pray for them in Santiago and
all the folks who would love to be there but would probably never make
it.  I saw his tomb below the altar, these two things alone are
extremely, yes, very, very important for people of the Christian, or
at least the Catholic faith.  I respect that completely.

I went in search of a rosary to honor the Catholics that i am walking
for.  About 5 gift stores into my search i finally found one without a
Jesus tacked onto it.  It is simple, made of wooden beads and brown
nylon string and the wooden cross has a lovely symbol on it.  It looks
like a "P" with an "x" at the bottom point of the "p".  It has 5 beads
leading up to the loop of beads that is 10 beads separated by 1 then
another 10 separated by 1 and so on.  5 sets in all of 10 beads with
the 4 separating them and then the 5 at the beginning to total 59
beads in all.  I went back to the church and found a young french
pilgrim, Pierre-Yves, to learn all the prayers from.  Hail Mary begins
like, "I say hello to you Mary" and it seems the rest of the prayers
are in a quazi modern french, or possibly they have never lost the old
language.  To bad the english language ! does not have a respectful
form anymore.  So I learned from someone else that the "Hail Mary's"
were repeated 10 times with the beads after one "Our Father" and then
one "Gloire au Pre, au Fils et au Saint Esprit...". I forgot the
name of that one in english.  The rosary is 4 times around.  Every 10
beads is for another time frame in the life of Christ, or the Holy
Spirit and a bunch of other things.  Because it was all too much for
one day, i decided to do one time for the origin of all of us, one
time for our birth, one time for our life and once for our passage
back to our origin.  I did not get through with the whole thing before
the evening mass began. This one was conducted by a very old Bishop
from Italy.  He was also a pilgrim that has just arrived in Santiago.
The poor old guy, he was pooped. He spoke the whole thing in Italian
and with the exception of a couple of minutes he read the ! entire
mass often loosing his place on the page.  I imagine that every
pilgrim understood.  I thought he was going to fall asleep in the big
golden chair in the middle of the stage with his big golden hat that
he did not want to wear. He kept taking it off and giving it to the
altar boy that would try to bring it back to him a couple of minutes
later.  After he spoke, one of the priests that was on the stage with
him said he was going to paraphrase in Castellan what the Bishop had
said.  He did not paraphrase at all, he said something totally
different and then when it was time to light the incense he said that
it was to clear the stink from the sweaty pilgrims out of the church.
I am a collector of few things, but i have a collection of resin
incense from all around the planet.  Possibly 100 sorts of resins,
exotic mixes of flowers and things i don't know what they are.  Burned
religiously in c! hurches in India, Asia, Latin America, Rome, Greece,
Jerusalem,North America and other points of origin that i have bought
or people have collected for me on their journeys. It is many things,
the smoke of incense, but to say it was merely a tradition of clearing
the stink out of the church was not telling the entire truth.  It was
however beautiful, sacred and cleansing.

I went back to my flat and was very sick for the next 25 hours. The
expulsion of demons?  Coincidentally, the last time that i was so ill
was at when i was in Mexico City some years ago, i had just concluded
a very in depth study of Teotihuac‡n.  I had visited the pyramids
for 3 days and the Museum of Archeology for 4 days in less than 2
weeks. I guess it could have been food poisoning both times.

Have you asked yourself, "what is The Camino de Santiago" yet?  The
following is some of what i have learned in the past days.  El Camino
de Santiago, or the Pilgrimage to Santiago

The tomb of St. James is said to lie in Santiago. He was one of the
twelve apostles of Jesus Christ.  He and his brother accompanied Jesus
through out the three years of His public life.  He was very
protective of Jesus and when people insulted Jesus and the other
Apostles, James wished death by lightening bolts on them.  Jesus gave
the brothers the knick name "Boanerges", which means "sons of thunder"
to them. 10 or 12 years passed between the death of Jesus and James's
martyrdom in Jerusalem about 44 A.D., when he was beheaded by Herod
Agrippa.  During this time he preached in Spain.  (1) "La L'gende
dore," by Segundo Jacques de Voragine, said, that after his
decapitation his disciples brought him back to Spain on the 8th of
August.  They met with a queen named Lupa (female wolf in spanish).
They told her that Jesus Christ had sent this body of his disciple so
that they could receive him dead, in what they could no longer
receive living. The queen listened to them and sent him to a very
cruel man, a king of Spain (it is not clear if it was her husband,
there were many kingdoms in Spain at the time). The King listened and
after some time, the disciples convinced him and he accepted.  When
the queen heard that the king had accepted and given his permission to
bury James in Spain the queen said, "take the bulls that are in the
mountains of lliano, and attach them to a wagon that will cary the
corpse of your master to a place where you like, of your choice."  The
story says that she spoke like a wolf because she knew that the bulls
were wild.  The disciples found a dragon along the way going up the
mountain and they cut it's throat.  They showed the wild bulls the
sign of the cross and they were transformed into tame animals that
when harnessed pulled the body of James to a place consecrated as
Santiago in the forest of Libredn (2).  His tomb was abandoned in
the 3rd century.  It was discovered in the year 814 by Pelayo, a
hermit, after observing strange lights during the night.  Teodomiro,
bishop os Iria Flavia, immediately proclaimed the miraculous nature of
the event and informed the king of Asturias, Alfonso II the Chaste,
who ordered the construction of a first chapel , resulting in the
founding of the city.  In less than two hundred years, the small
village became one of Christendom's most important centers, giving
rise to the Way of St. James, or the Camino de Santiago (3).
St. James's Saint day is the 25th of July.  When this day falls on a
Sunday it is a Jubilee year.  On the New Years eve of a Holy Year the
Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela opens the Holy Door of the
Cathedral.  This religious ceremony signals the start of the Holy Year
of Saint James.  There will be 1! 4 Holy Years in the 21st century,
the first of them is celebrated in 2004.  Going through the Holy Door
means to get the chance to hug the statue of the Saint and see his
urn.  It is also a year of grace when the Church grants special
spiritual graces.(1) They say, much like Rome, that all the roads lead
to Santiago.  There are 5 major routes leading to Santiago from
various points in Spain, and one (the most popular) leading from 4
major points of departure in France. Yet ANY PATH one wishes to take,
no mater from where, if their destination is Santiago, is a Camino to
Santiago.  There is only one path leading out of Santiago, going to
Finisterre.  This is the one i am going to take, and there lies my
destination, as well as the ancient origins of this pilgrimage.
Contrary to religious opinion the pilgrimage to Finisterre has origins
at least as far back as 3500 years before Christ. This!  path is
called The Way of the Stars.

(1)- pamphlet "2004 Compostelan Jublee Year; a road with an end."
(2)- "Les Jacques et le mystre de Compostelle" Louis Charpentier,1971 
(3)- pamphlet "Santiago de Compostela" Turismo de Santiago
 
Camino de las Estrellas or Way of the Stars and the Camino de Muerte
or Way of the Dead

Since i started my journey, a days walk to Mont Saint-Michel with my
stuff and map and compass i have constantly thought of those that
walked before me.  I had an ancient map of the Caminos, so old that
the French spelling had changed, it was at least 600 years old.  When
i asked the priest at Le Mont Saint Michele about the path to Santiago
he said that it was very long ago that people started from there, that
it did not exist anymore.  He closed the door and when i knocked
again, no one came to answer the door. I set out with a road map and a
compass.  Every river i crossed i thought of the ancients, or those
not so long ago.  They are still building bridges everywhere.  And
only along the coast did i think, or rather not think, cause the ocean
was always on my right, i knew i was on the right trail.  I learned
about the tides, high tide happens twice a day.  The important tide
for pilgrims!  is low tide, because you can walk over the sand and it
is a much shorter path than over land.  I was only caught in
blackberries a few times, after that i learned to avoid them.
Blackberry bushes were one of the few exceptions i gladly made to
retrace my steps to find a better path.  All of the major forests of
Europe have been cut down.  Probably for several hundred years now.
The swamps have for the most part been drained and there are neat
polders along the French coast.  But there are rivers that drain into
the Atlantic that are huge.  It would be impossible to swim across and
to trace the banks of the rivers to a crossing point would take weeks.
I think the ancients did not take the coastal route often.  The first
tourist book ever was written over the Camino over 600 years ago.  But
until the press was invented, i bet a normal person could not buy a
book with 15 years wages.  It had to be an!  oral tradition, a map of
oral tradition, like mythology or astronomy of long ago.  I would love
to know about these stories.  But in the last days i have learned that
it had much to do with the stars of course.  In my new book, Louis
Charpentier tells that the "Camino de Santiago" as well as 2 other
pilgrimages are talked about in the tales of the Holy Grail.  It has
to do with the lay lines of the planet.  The very, very old pilgrimage
along the Milky Way, here in North Spain, goes along the 42 parallel.
To this day, many of the cities and towns that it crosses are names
that mean star.  Including Compostela, (stellar=stela), actually
meaning the star of the compostum, or stamp.  The old pilgrimage began
around 42á39' of latitude in the French Pyrenees by the Mediterranean
coast, the pic d«Estelle (peak of the star). Following the Milky Way
(although very difficult to walk in the Pyrenees at n! ight), and
following the 42á all the way through Santiago to Finisterre, heading
toward the Dog Star, or Canus Major.  Over half of the current "French
Camino" follows that old route.  The only language left over from this
time is Basque.  And because most of the languages are gone, it will
always be difficult to interpret the prehistoric motives and symbols.
But even the pamphlet that the woman in the tourist office gave me
explains that it was a pilgrimage of the dead.  The sun dies every
night in the west, to be reborn in the east the next day.  It is an
ancient tradition to bury people with the tomb facing the west, thus
when St. James was beheaded, they brought him as far west as they
could, to the end of the earth, Finisterre (fin=end, Terre=earth).
For the primitive people it was probably very important and essential
for rebirth to bring their dead to the west.  To achieve a new
beginning, an end is necessa! ry. The symbols, instruments,
numerology, labyrinths, and megalithic dolmens and i hope, a dance,
still exist from this "Camino de Muerte".  The other two pilgrimages
that have long ago ceased to be walked go along the 48á parallel in
France from de Saint-Odile to the extreme point in the west,
Finisterre in Bretagne.  The third and one that completely makes
sense, and would even be very interesting to explore further is in
England along the 51á parallel, passing Canterbury, Godstone,
Stonehenge (51á16'), Glastonbury and ending in Barnstaple, where a
neolithic labyrinth stone was excavated that is almost exactly like a
labyrinth that was excavated near Santiago.
 
 
So, that is what i wanted to know.  A little history, roots, something
that binds me further with this path. Little stories, but I find it so
interesting.  It turns out that the two other paths were probably
abandoned around the time that the Druids were being persecuted by the
Romans.
  
So, this has been a path of many deaths for me, beginning on the first
day with one of my dearest friends, Dennis Smith aka "The Bird Man".
I guess this is what it is like to get old because he was followed by
Ralph, and Dana, Warlock and Dragon (my doggies) and as of late Kathy
and Carol. And more.  I am going to try my best to leave them in the
west, at the sea.  I find it so hard to part with my people.

As the ancients knew, new beginnings begin with an end.  At the
beginning of this trip i would have never considered having a child.
I have thought deeply about this and i think now i am much more open
to it, and i have lots of love in my heart to give.  I was looking for
a change in my life.  I have changed some things.  I am going to miss
the contact om the Camino with god.  Free falling through space-time
as it sometimes feels like is almost walking between life and death.
No house to go to, no friends to meet, no job to get up in the morning
for.  It is almost a walk of the dead, and god definitely seems
closer.  So, i have learned about the beast in me. I need to care for
her and make sure she has a place to run wild, the intellectual side
usually takes care of herself.  Religion could have a place in my life
as well, but i hate to bother Saints and spirits and everything e! lse
that is trying to get on.  I think i will invent my own, for me
religion would have a place to do religiously to remember where i am
now and why i love to be.  It has been a fine walk.  Thank you for
your company.

I think this will be the penultimate edition of the chronicles of my
path to Finisterre.  I would like to write one more when i am back in
Holland unpacking, i did years of field research on equipment.  I am
sure someone will find some of the information handy.  I encourage
everyone to go on a long walk.  It does not matter where, as long as
you find it special.

     Ultrea (go beyond),   gin 

paypal

11:11pm JST Friday 17 September 2004

> Form Message
> customer subject: Credit Cards; Add Credit Card; I moved to Japan after I
> opened my account in the US.
> customer message: Additional Information: 'I moved to Japan after I opened
> my paypal account in the US.   I still have and use my US bank account
> (Washington Mutual), and my US credit card (MBNA).
> 
> My credit card statements now come to my apartment in Japan.  So in order
> to confirm my credit card's new expiration date (expiration date on paypal
> expired recently), I have to enter a Japanese address.
> 
> I am a US citizen, and I'll be heading back toward the US in 6 months.'
> 
> 


On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 06:55:25 -0500, webform@paypal.com <webform@paypal.com> wrote:
> Dear Rob Nugen,
> 
> Thank you for contacting PayPal.
> 
> PayPal does not allow members to add a credit/debit card that is issued
> outside of the country from which your PayPal Account is registered.
> 
> If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us
> again.
> 
> Sincerely,
> Jennifer
> PayPal Community Support
> PayPal, an eBay Company
> 


I feel angry.

I don't think my email was read.

My credit card was issued in the United States.  My credit card bank
(MBNA) is in the United States.  After my credit card was issued in
the United States, I moved to Japan.  My credit card company,
providing good customer service, allowed me to change my address to a
Japanese address so that I could receive my US-issued credit card
statements from a US company (MBNA) in Japan.

I am a US citizen.  My credit card bank is a US bank.  My credit card
was issued in the United States.  I moved to Japan.  My credit card
company understands that people move.  Why can't paypal understand?

After my credit card was issued in the United States, I moved to
Japan.  After that, my credit card expired, as credit cards do.  My
credit card bank, (MBNA), located in the United States, sent me a
credit card with an updated expiration date.  The updated credit card
has the same account number as the previous one.  It's for the same
account.  That account, as mentioned before, was opened in the United
States.  The credit card for that account was issued in the United
States.

Now.  If, after all of the above is read, including the intentional
repetitions to drive the point home, paypal cannot figure out that I
am a US citizen with a US-issued credit card with a Japanese mailing
address, I am going to do the following things:

1) be very mad at Paypal, and post mean things about paypal on my website.
2) ask my credit card company to change my billing address to the United States.
3) be mad at Paypal as I update my credit card information with a new expiration date and a US address.
4) ask my credit card company to change my credit card address to Japan.
5) complain about Paypal some more.

Just because you have a monopoly on this idea of sending money online
does not mean that you can continue to maintain the monopoly and
provide poor customer service.

I'm sorry to dump all this on the person reading this email.  I doubt
my complaint is based on something you did personally.  I hope you
have a nice day.

sally

8:20am JST Saturday 18 September 2004

I got to chat with Sally last night! She was feeling blue with all the hard work she's been doing over the past years, which seems to be amounting to a whole lot of nothing. I totally know that feeling; I was glad to have the opportunity to listen to her pain.

She's doing some kick ass stuff, too! Teaching drum lessons, working to get paying drumming gigs, working in a job she loves... awesome.