Limping Across Spain

Well, I finally finished my big walk across Spain. (It would be more accurately described as a big limp across Spain.) Along the way I´ve met many incredible people and have had some incredible experiences. I was going to update my blog much more frequently, but I was always too busy popping blisters, drinking wine, or trying to figure out how to get my laundry dry by the next day.

I´ve met fabulous people from all corners of the world.

I wanted to tell you about my German friends, Sylvia, Annette and Annette, who I met on the second day of my walk and they invited me to walk with them until they had to go back to Germany. They were so much fun to travel with. Their backpacks were too heavy, they laughed a lot and they ordered extra wine at dinner. They traveled with expensive eye cream and collapsible wine glasses. I think they were equally amused by my general travel ineptitudes like my inability to button my poncho, why I couldn´t figure out how to stuff my sleeping bag in its stuff sack, my inablity to figure out how to use a calling card to call the United States, or why I chose to bring along white clothing on what was essentially a month-long camping trip. They also informed me that we have been pronouncing "Steimle" incorrectly all of our lives. Using my extensive Spanish skills, I always wanted to translate for them, but they did a much better job communicating with the Spanish in English than I did in Spanish.

One night my other German friend, Maria, and I had dinner with two gentlemen from Japan. We laughed and laughed, and surprise, surprise, we were the loudest ones in the room. For the past few days, people have been telling me, "Oh, Gina, I always know when you´re around, I can hear your laugh." All we need is Sherry Wilson and Arleen over here with me at the same time, and then Europe would be permanently closed to Americans.

For a while, I traveled with a church group from Ireland. They were all very nice and always made sure I was included in all their activities and the rounds of beer they bought. Eventually, they also had to return home (I´m very blessed to be able to have all this time to travel and to complete my Camino in one trip.) The priest they were traveling with, Fernando, almost brought me back to the flock, but miracles are hard to come by these days.

I´ve found on the Camino, it´s a very small world. Last week, I met two girls from Cape Girardeau (Heidi and Johanna Froemsdorf--I went to school with their sister Stephanie) and traveling with them is their friend Katharine who taught Spanish to one of my fríends´daughters in St. Louis. Traveling with the Irish was an American deacon who knows somebody in Jeff City that my sister Patty knows. I´ve also met a Spanish nun who taught for a year in Jennings and lived in Maryland Heights, and on Friday I met another priest from St. Louis. (And for four weeks I´d been saying that very few Americans have heard about the Camino and that I, Gina Steimle, was the only one from Missouri who had heard of it.)

Finally, I wanted to write extensively about how famous my feet are on the Camino--and not because I´ve been going around Spain drinking beer with them. (Yes, I still drink beer with my feet.)I have the most famous blisters in Spain. In the evening, people at the alburgues would always ask me how my feet were doing. If they didn´t know about my bad feet, they would quickly find out when I sat outside to pop my blisters. I can´t say I was too shy about my problems, either. One night at dinner with the entire Irish group and two producers from Hollywood, my blisters somehow came up in conversation, so I pulled my foot out to show everybody my feet. I am just delightful to be around.

I´ve wanted to write about all of this in great detail, but alas, I ran out of time. For more details, you´ll have to read the book. Gina