By the time they reached the town along the Douro, they'd come up with a remedy to deal with the cold Galician nights (in August). At the end of the evening meal, we began to ask for hot milk with a shot of brandy and then they'd add a cube or two of sugar to the mix. It was warm perfection and the worked excellently as a sleep aid. Particularly when one was sleeping in a room full of people many of whom snored loudly. Time was of the essence when you faced another day of walking, sleep was precious.
It was during the pilgrimage that I found time for introspection on a level that I hadn't been able to achieve in the months I'd spent strolling along the streets of Barcelona. Part of it was that I had to do something because we'd decided it was un-wise to smoke while walking along the trail, lest we run out of oxygen as we ascended a steep peak. Walking past cornfields can have that effect on you.
I used that time to get "real" about many of the situations I was facing in my life. Principally, the romance questions. After months of regaling my new friends of my fantasy life with Ze German, us having cute babies, me obtaining EU citizenship in living and Europe happily ever after, etc etc. I was facing the fact that I had built up this romance in my mind to a fever pitch, when in actuality all it was a dampening spark.
And now, this vacation with him was rapidly approaching. How had this happened? We went from meeting up in Barcelona to meeting up in a country that neither of us had ever been to and didn't speak the language. This was going to be a fraking disaster!!! How had I let things get this far? I was being silly, I'd let a crush on a foreigner and one of those days where all you do is talk for real and get to know each other, damn Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy for romanticizing that scenario!
Our tenuous rendezvous was two and a half weeks away. Tenuous, because he was kind of flaky on the exact details, and in about a week's time it would seem like the whole thing was off. This all happening in Porto. But right now I was just freaking out. Why am I going on vacation with a guy that I haven't even been on a proper date with? Can I plead insanity? I'd led myself on with my fantasies and now I was going to be confronted by someone I barely knew. For a whole week. So yes, my time in Galician countryside was extremely helpful in figuring these things out.. But living in a fantasy could be so much better.
It was during the pilgrimage that I found time for introspection on a level that I hadn't been able to achieve in the months I'd spent strolling along the streets of Barcelona. Part of it was that I had to do something because we'd decided it was un-wise to smoke while walking along the trail, lest we run out of oxygen as we ascended a steep peak. Walking past cornfields can have that effect on you.
I used that time to get "real" about many of the situations I was facing in my life. Principally, the romance questions. After months of regaling my new friends of my fantasy life with Ze German, us having cute babies, me obtaining EU citizenship in living and Europe happily ever after, etc etc. I was facing the fact that I had built up this romance in my mind to a fever pitch, when in actuality all it was a dampening spark.
And now, this vacation with him was rapidly approaching. How had this happened? We went from meeting up in Barcelona to meeting up in a country that neither of us had ever been to and didn't speak the language. This was going to be a fraking disaster!!! How had I let things get this far? I was being silly, I'd let a crush on a foreigner and one of those days where all you do is talk for real and get to know each other, damn Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy for romanticizing that scenario!
Our tenuous rendezvous was two and a half weeks away. Tenuous, because he was kind of flaky on the exact details, and in about a week's time it would seem like the whole thing was off. This all happening in Porto. But right now I was just freaking out. Why am I going on vacation with a guy that I haven't even been on a proper date with? Can I plead insanity? I'd led myself on with my fantasies and now I was going to be confronted by someone I barely knew. For a whole week. So yes, my time in Galician countryside was extremely helpful in figuring these things out.. But living in a fantasy could be so much better.
