And then we only had 12.8 miles to go.....

To start, I had a really good post last night but the internet cut out and it didn´t post so i will do my best to do a bit of catch up and remember everything I wrote about last night =(

Starting with day 29, we walked from Sarria to Portomarin. This day was really hard for my for some reason. It was near the end, we were close enough to count the days we had left to walk on one hand and i was just utterly exhausted. It was one of the hardest mental days I have had. It was around this time that a lot more casual walkers were starting and it seemed that whenever i came close to just being quiet and walking by myself, a big group of loud walkers would come up and it was hard to shake them. I have come to really enjoy the quiet and peacefulness of walking alone. It feels like you have the whole Camino to yourself. That night, we made a wonderful dinner of pasta and pushed a bunch of tables together in our albergue. We bought two Sanitago Tarts and ate every bite. The tarts may be my new favorite food. It is an almond cake and pretty wonderful.

From Portamarin, we walked 16 more miles to Palas de Rei. I felt a lot better this day, just with more energy and an all around excitment to be walking again. Hannah and I were walking together in the morning and our friend Greg bounced up behind us. We hadn´t seen Greg in about a week so it was exciting to see him again. The three of us walked together for the rest of the day into town. The frienships you have on the Camino are so interesting because there are people I know i will never see again but that made such an impact on my time here. I thought Greg was maybe too far ahead of us so we wouldn´t see him again so it was pretty exciting to have him come back and surprise us. When this is all over, I think the part I am going to miss the most is just walking up to someone and talking for an hour or so. The talks can be shorter or longer but just striking up a conversation with a perfect stranger has become such an important part of my day. I have learned so much from having talks with people I may never see again but for that time, they had an impact on my walk.

That night in Palas de Rei, we celebrated John´s birthday, another guy in our little group. Our plan was to make a big dinner similar to my birthday but when we got into the albergue....there was a kitchen but no pots, pans, plates or cutlery. As with most of our plans we have made on the camino, we had to switch them around. Instead, we went out to a nice dinner and had our traditional pilgrim´s meal. This particular restuarant however was one of the nicest dinners I have had. They brought out an extra big piece of Santiago Tart for John and we all sang happy birthday to him.

From Palas de Rei, we walked another 16 miles to Ribadiso. I had a wonderful post all about this day yesterday....but sadly it is lost. The walk itself was pretty, through some small towns and through some farms and forests. The mornings are the hardest to get started. I think I can honestly say that for the first mile or so of every single morning, I have regretted the decision to walk. Its just cold and hard to get started in the morning. But then, the sun comes up and it becomes wonderful again. I really love seeing the sun rise every morning. Once that happens, I am glad I am here once again. The sunrise this morning was one of the best I have seen. I stopped for about 10 minutes and watched it. The sky was just filled with pink and purple streaks of light (two of my favorite colors). As I was standing on this mound watching the sun, a few other older pilgrims stopped and took a picture of me. Maybe it was because my pink socks matched the sky...=)

Jess and I walked together for most of the day and as we walked through one of the small towns, a very nice but very pushy priest invited us into his church. By inviting....I mean he took my hand and pulled me inside. He gave us these little cards and asked us if he could stamp our Pilgrim´s passports. We looked at each other and pulled them out, letting him stamp them. Afterwards, he asked if we wanted to see the church. I said that we were going to continue on our walk. This wasn´t really the answer he wanted so instead he just took my hand and pulled me into the sanctuary. There was another woman sitting down in a pew so Jess and I sat down. The priest then read a very nice prayer for us and then walked out. By this point, we were doing our best to hold in the laughter. He was such a sweet man but it was just so unexpected and funny at the same time. When we finally got out of the church, we laughed for the next five or ten minutes about it.

The albergue in Ribadiso may be my favorite one. The description in the guide book says

¨This is a wonderful reconstruction of an old pilgrim hospice, with an award for environmental architecture, an idyllic location on the river Iso.¨

It lived up to expectation and we spent most of the afternoon laying in the grass outside . They even had warm showers which makes it rank high on my list. I decided that it would be a good idea to wash all of my clothes because it had been a little while since I had done that. This was a bit of a gamble because if the didn´t dry, then it was going to be a very cold morning. Good news though....they dried. The quick dry feature really held true and I was just fine!

This morning, we walked from Ribadiso about 2 miles into a town, Arzua and had breakfast. We were talking about how once we stop walking, our breakfast habits are going to have to change pretty dramatically. My two pastery breakfasts are not going to go as well if I am not walking 15 miles a day. I think I may have to cut it down to just one pastery once we stop walking.

When we were in the cafe, the tv show Amazing Race was on TV. Kirstin and I watched it really closely to see if the people we know who are on it were still on the show. It took about half an hour to realize that it was an old episode from a few seasons ago... (So, Jake you are going to have to let us know how they are doing).

The rest of the day went really well. I thought my foot was feeling pretty good this morning so I only took one Ibeprophen. This turned out to be a pretty big mistake with an hour left to walk. I am going to need to stick to the two Ibeprophens until further notice from my feet. They are looking very swollen though. They will need to go down in order to fit into my high heels. I can´t come home to Halloween season and not be able to wear high heels with whatever costume I choose!

Hannah said today when we got into our albergue that it is pretty cool that the people who slept in our beds last night are reaching Santiago today. I can´t believe that we will be those pilgrims walking in tomorrow.

So, tomorrow is the day we walk into Santiago. It seems like it came so fast. There were days at the beginning that were too overwhelming to even count how many miles we had to go that day let alone how many until Santiago. As the day went on today, I couldn´t help but feel so proud of myself. The magnitude of how far I have come, both physically and just mentally are huge. I always knew i could do it, but there is just something so special about being so close to actually getting there. Our plan is to wake up really early and try and make it into Santiago for the 12pm Pilgrim´s mass. Our plans haven´t really held up so far but I think we have a good chance at following through with this one. I just can´t wait to walk into the city and know that I have walked over 500 miles in 33 days.

Kirstin and I decided a few weeks ago that we would talk about walking to Finisterre when we got closer to Santiago. Finisterre is considered the end of the world (according to Christopher Columbus). It is an extra 3 days of walking but you end up on the coast of Spain, overlooking the ocean. Today, we talked about it and for some crazy reason, we are signing ourselves up to walk those extra three days. There is something sort of satisfying about saying that we walked until we physically couldn´t anymore because of the ocean. Some postive things about this is we get to spend more days with Hannah, Jess and Ben and continue our two pastery breakfast habit a bit longer.

I think it will also be a little bit more personal to finish in Finisterre. Santiago seems like it will be crazy and busy and really fun. Finisterre is a bit more quiet and there is a tradition of burning your clothes when you get there. It is supposed to symbolize the new you. According to our crazy woman in San Bol (the one who kicked us out) ¨You die as the sun sets and the clothes burn. Then you turn around and are reborn¨. Imagine that being said in a very flowy, over the top hippy voice.

But I am excited to continue on. I think both of us would really regret not walking if we just took a bus there. To answer your question Grandma, Kirstin is doing really well. She had a really big, pretty fantastic looking blister yesterday but once it was popped, it didn´t bother her anymore. It was better than the girl who took her sock off yesterday and her big toenail came off with it. My foot is getting better, well its not getting worse at least!

Arizona posted a link to a website that has a webcam of Santiago. We are planning on getting in around 10:30am tomorrow which will be 1:30am at home. But maybe just take a look throughout the morning because we will be walking around there and spending most of the day in that area.

ONLY 12.8 MILES LEFT!!!!!