Today was not my day. I woke up and was fine for about 10 minutes when I got an email on my phone saying my credit card statement was ready. I knew it was going to be popping up soon, so being a responsible adult I decided to log in real quick and pay before we headed out. Well, in doing that I realized that there had been charges on my account that I did not make while I’ve been gone. I immediately start getting worked up because I don’t understand how the bank did not catch it. I submitted travel dates. I feel like they should have caught the charges happening online all over the United States. $1,500. Somebody started two days after we began the Camino using my card to buy $1,500 worth of food and clothing. I was so mad! I had to call the bank and it caused us to leave late, which I felt bad about. Also insanely frustrated because I had to cancel my card (which is in my possession) and get a new one shipped to me. At home. In the United States. Where I’m not for another 20 some odd days. So that was really cool. Great start to my day. I did not like people today.

BUT! It turns out I was right and the path I took a photo of yesterday from the castle WAS the path we took this morning! So I took a photo the opposite direction back towards the castle. Look and see the teeny castle at the top!

I pretty much just listened to my audiobook the entire day, which helped. We ran into Silvano, Marguerite and Cyrille between breaks. The views were still beautiful. Saw a crazy stork nest on top of the church too.

t was hot again today. Really hot. There were a lot of gaps with not a lot of places to stop which is always hard when you have to pee. We got just outside of Frómista which had this awesome sign telling us only 424 kilometers more to Santiago! Only, ha!

After that, we checked into our albergue. Marguerite and Cyrille were in our room! And guess who is in the bed next to us again? Well, literally next to Debbie? The preist! He’s back. Debbie wanted to find out if he was an actual preist or just a brother and began to ask him. We knew he was from Brazil and spoke Portuguese but could get by with Spanish. And once again because technology can be totally awesome we used the voice version of Google translate which was just awesome. Debbie (mostly) or I would speak into the phone in English and it would read it aloud in Spanish. We would hand him the phone and he would speak in Spanish and it would speak in English. It was pretty awesome. Glitchy at times, but awesome.

Turns out he’s a Franciscan Friar! Which is essentially a preist. He can give mass. Debbie asked all sorts of questions, starting with “can I hold the statue?” 😂 And he said yes. And I held it too. It was SO heavy. His entire pack and the statue together weigh about 37 pounds! He told us how he has been a friar for eight years. Debbie asked about the chains. He wears chains with a lock like a bracelet on each wrist. Google translate came back with “I am a slave to the Virgin Mary.” Which sounded really intense. They will be on his wrists forever, even in death. It was intense. He works with young children in Brazil and was fabulous when it came to communicating with us. He was really open and the best part was that any time he responded to us he would speak into the phone, but look directly act whoever he was answering. It was cool. He handed us a prayer, in Italian, and then got out some oil and I guess blessed us. Said words in Portuguese and made the sign of the cross on our heads. No idea what he said, but hey, couldn’t have been too bad. I did double check with the internet that he didn’t think I was going to die. Talking to my Mom, oil is often used in the Catholic faith rarley. Rarely in that you get it when you get anointed at confirmation and then… Anointing of the sick? Like, you’re about to die type deal. Turns out Google says Franciscan Friars also use oil in honor of Saint Anthony which wards off attacks of evil spirits, gives strength to withstand temptations against purity, heals the body and brings peace. Sooo… that happened.

After that, I went downstairs to find Marguerite, Cyrille, Marco, and Seng-jun (from Korea!) Sitting outside drinking. I joined them and later we we’re joined by Silvano and a new person, Emmett, and two other girls Yula and Yula (who are best friends at home, two weeks apart in birth, and not related at all). We sat around having wine, talking, and playing games, learning phrases or words in other languages. It was quite beautiful to see. You had a lot of languages flying around at once with all of the mini conversations happening. It was a mix of Italian, French, Korean, Spanish, English, and German. This entirely helped turn my not so good day around. We eventually cleaned up and headed to bed.

Day mileage: 11.9
Total mileage: 214.7
Personal mileage: 15.93