Finally there!!!

That´s right! We have arrived in Santiago...finally! After 25 days of walking, 375 miles, 35 loaves of bread, 45 cups of cafe con leche, 65 cervezas, countless crazy people...it was worth it all! We spent the last two nights on the camino sitting with people, drinking wine and simply enjoying life. It was great cause the hikes were shorter than normal, 13 and 12 miles. So we had lots of time in the afternoon to hang out and relax. Then yesterday we hiked the 12.8 miles into the city. We weren´t expecting to have to go through the city to get to the cathedral. From what we´d heard, you come up over a hill and BAM!, there´s the cathedral. However, we came into the old town, down through a gate with bagpipes playing and suddenly we were in the plaza in front of the most magnificent cathedral we had seen thus far. It was a very powerful experience to arrive there, see your friends from along the way just staring up at this massive cathedral. Just as we got into the plaza, the bell started tolling for the noon pilgrim´s mass. It was absolutely perfect. Such a weird feeling to be done with something so huge, but a wonderful feeling as well. The next hour or two after that was spent getting our official compostela, in which Michael is ¨michaelem¨, I am ¨catherineum¨and julia is ¨julium¨. So official. Then came the business of finding a hotel. After several false starts, we happened upon Hostal Mapoula. We have our own room with our OWN BATHROOM!!! Life can´t get much better! We napped in the afternoon and then went out to explore the city. We found a great table outside, ordered sangria (we are in Spain, after all) and watched a tractor parade, of all things! We later found out it was some sort of demonstration. Then we found a restaurant and got a relatively expensive fish dinner (Michael got lamb). But it was our much deserved reward for completing our trek. As the evening cooled off, we drank wine, watched part of a music festival in the plaza outside our hotel and chatted with friends. It was a very nice night, but not nice enough to keep us out past 1130, when all three of us passed out. Slept til 9 this morning, felt great! Today we hit up the pilgrims mass. The inside of the cathedral is pretty amazing, but also crowded and somewhat distracting. I think all of us were a little disappointed for the relative lack of respect and spirituality in the building. Tour groups were walking through during the mass, taking pictures and whatnot. So we are spending our afternoon relatively low-key, mostly cause it is ridiculously hot out there.

It is strange knowing we have no more walking/hiking left. After getting into such a groove and having such a goal-oriented plan, we are struggling a little with the fact that we are done. Almost like a post-partum depression...what do we do now? Let us tell you...

Tomorrow night we board a train at 1035 which takes us overnight to Madrid, where one of our new Camino friends, Pablo, is going to pick us up, take us for coffee and breakfast and then drop us off at the airport, where we catch our flight to Rome. We have 4 hours in Rome, then we catch another overnight train to Brindisi where, 5 hours later, we hop a ferry that will take us to the Greek Island of Corfu. And there we will find our relaxtion place for the next week. After that, who knows...

Thank you all very much for your thoughts and prayers during the Camino. It has truly been an amazing, trying, thrilling, tiring, uplifting experience and thoughts of all of you were what kept us on track most of the time. We hope you are all well, you are in our prayers! We will still be posting throughout the rest of our trip if you are so inclined to peek in. Thanks again, and much love!

Buen Camino!
Michael and Catie