First day gatherings

Once I started walking The Camino without the fear of spending the entire day laboring in the rain I found myself able to concentrate on why I am here. The first thing I noticed was that walking for hours in an environment completely foreign to me allowed me to just take it all in. When I was training for this trip in Capistrano I would walk the same route, see or be avoided by the same people and the  environment was always the same. I did not try to see things differently. I was just on a mission to walk a required number of miles carrying a designated number of pounds in my backpack for training purposes. Today was very different.

I noticed everything. I had no choice because it was all new and new meant interesting. Not only was the environment different, all of the people were new and different. The people were also different in another way. They were interested in you if for no other reason than to meet new people or to simply ask.... "Why are you on The Camino ?". In most of my conversations people don't ask but instead they just want to tell you why they are here and then they will ask you. The focus is to unveil something. The women sitting next to me tonight at the Pilgrims dinner told me (unsolicited) that she had just lost her job two weeks ago and only then decided that she would join her Husband on his planned Camino.  Interesting that she thought that if she began to look for new work she might find something and that would mean not being able ask a new employer for 5 weeks vacation at the start of the new job. Did her husband want to go alone? Was it his idea or was he asked? None of my business but it left me wanting to ask those questions but of course I could not.

The two French women and their male companion sitting directly across from me, were completely uninterested in anything to do with anyone. I got the impression that they were either just not going to deal with language issues or they decided that a dinner which included wine for ten Euro was worth having to avoid eye contact with me. It worked until the meal arrived.

The dish contained two items, French fries and a whole trout. Yes a whole trout, head to tail,  bones included. I cut open the side of the fish and took a small bite which turned out to be mostly tiny bones. I knew then that I had finished eating the trout because I'll be damned that after walking from St. Jean successfully I was not going to die choking on a fish bone. The French women sitting across from me was very amused with my lack of effort because it now gave her the ability to remove the bone from her trout completely while at the same time maintaining  eye contact with me and never looking down on her work. I assume she was not trying to show me how but rather it was her goal to just remind me that she could and I could not. How do these people find me?

In the end she and her companions got what the wanted, a dinner with wine for ten Euro and the chance to sit across from an ignorant American. Well done. 

Two things are for sure. One, I will most likely attend another Pilgrim meal and two I will make sure that I am not sitting in the company of any of these people ever again. I ate little and learned much, they eat more and learned nothing.

If all of the Pilgrim meals include a whole fish I will be loosing more weight than I can imagine . Good night.