Still Alive

Hola Amigos!

10 days into my walk, and i´m still alive! (Good for me!) I have lots of stories to tell, and will write soon. I´ve been having problems finding . . . internet, ATMs, public telephones and a good looking Spainiard to massage my feet at the end of the day. Asi es la vida! (Oh, by the way, this blog is hard for me to keep up with because when I sign in, it´s all in Spanish, and my Spanish is worse than anyone thought. Thinking of you. I´ll try to write soon. Gina

The Pyrenees Ain´t no Ozarks

So, I underestimated the Pyrenees a bit. I thought they were similar in altitude to the Ozarks. What did I know? First, let me say, the walk across was absolutely stunning. The smartest thing that I´ve ever perhaps done in my life is paid a service to carry my backpack across the mountains for me to my first stop, Roncevalles, which was about 18 miles away. That was the best 8 euros I´ve ever spent in my life!

To summarize my first day:
--I walked up a mountain
__I saw some horses just grazing on the side of the road--it was cool, they were like wild horses because they weren´t fenced in, but they belonged to someone because you could see their tags
--I kept walking up the moutains
--I saw flocks of sheep grazing on several different occasions
--I walked thru fog
--I kept walking up the mountain
--Saw some cows
--Helped several Europeans practice their English (because of course I didn´t know a word of their languages)
--Made these two nice Dutch ladies who I had met the night before laugh: Thru the fog, all they could see was my orange poncho, so they called me ´Caspar´the orange ghost. Then they said that pèrhaps I was their angel, but really, I think that ´Caspar the orange ghost is more áppropriate.
--Kept walking up mountains
--Walked thru mud
--Started walking down the mountains
--Walked thru a beautiful beech forest
--Walked thru even more mud ( I won´t be able to return my boots now)
--Kept walking
--Arrived Roncevalles around 6 p.m. I was so tired I didn´t even make it to dinner (and we all know that is a first.)
Having fun, Gina

24 hours, 35 minutes to departure

In case anyone was worrying that I had given up my procrastinating ways, you can take a deep breath and know that the earth still revolves around the sun and I still wait to the last minute on everything.

I am happy to say that this morning I finally booked a hotel for my night in Paris, so my travel arrangements are looking pretty good. The footwear issue, however, is a different story. I'm still working on that one. I'd like to thank all of the many Von Steimles (you know that outdoorsy, tromp around in the Alps family from the Sierras of Cape Girardeau) for all of their fabulous and contradicting advice about my footwear. A special shout-out to Mom for suggesting I get a pair of those old lady SAS shoes. I think that would make quite the fashion statement on the Camino.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for your prayers and help and advice and presents. It has been greatly appreciated.

Ay, Ay, Ay!

"Ay, ay, ay!" I'll be leaving in less than 10 days and I have so much to do. I did manage to finally get a backpack I'm happy with today. It's nice and big and pretty and expensive and it should fit everything I'm taking along. If not, I'm going to have to leave stuff behind. As most of you know, I'm a packrat and one of the many challenges I will face on this trip is learning to do with less stuff. When I finish the Camino, I hope to be able to come home and finally clean out that basement.

My zapatos , alas, are a different story. I bought a pair of hiking boots last week and I'm not so sure they're the perfect fit. I want them to feel like butter, but they don't. I'll make one more trip to the store to try on boots, and if I don't find what I want, then I will make do with what I have already purchased and go on a mad dash to break in the boots.

Does anyone want to go hiking with me this week? If so, let me know.

Welcome to my blog

I've threatened to do a blog about my trip, and here it is. I've got about 329 things I must do before I leave on my trip, but instead, I'm wasting time with this blog. This is much more fun. If you're really bored, you can click on the pictures on the left-hand side of the page. These are videos created by people with even more time on their hands than I have. The top one is in Spanish (and of course after studying Spanish for one year, I have absloutely no idea what anyone is saying; the second one is a brief, factual presentation on the Camino--it takes about two minutes to watch and gives a good overview of my trip; the third one is inspirational sayings; and the fourth one appears to be be someone's pictures put to music. Enjoy.