Behind the Albergue Door: Inspiration Agony Adventure on the Camino de Santiago

DJ in Edinburgh. It’s going pretty well, I thought it might be weird but so far so good. Wasn’t planning on hooking up within the first week but whatever. Don’t mention it to anyone else yet, mom will just get all judgemental and start asking a bunch of irritating questions. I’ll keep you posted.

    To M & D, Lizzie, Adam, Brandi K
    Finally, a break!
    On Sat, Oct 13 at 1:30 PM, Rachel Harrington wrote:
    We are in Burgos today, doing absolutely NO HIKING! We all decided to take a rest day here, and even treated ourselves to hotel rooms. Something as simple as having your own bathroom is brilliant when you’ve been sharing dorms for 2 weeks. I had a 2 hour bath last night. I felt like a filthy sponge being rung out. Going to go to mass tonight, then we’ll all get together for dinner. I think we really needed this.

    To M & D, Lizzie, Adam, Brandi K
    Bacon in the rain
    On Tue, Oct 16 at 7:04 PM, Rachel Harrington wrote:
    It’s been raining like crazy for the last couple days. We couldn’t take the thought of another night in a cold wet dorm so we found a hotel with some cheap rooms to dry out and at least start the day dry tomorrow. The couple that runs the hotel also run the grocery store next do or. We accidentally ended up going down some back way into the store and the guy was there cutting meat and he kept calling us over to give us free bacon samples. All the people in line were getting pretty annoyed with us. The strange situations we find ourselves in…
    I got a new poncho finally since it doesn’t look like the rain is letting up any time soon. I wore it all morning and it was working pretty well I thought, until after lunch a friend of mine pointed out that I had my head sticking out the arm hole.

    To Lizzie, Brandi K
    Things are looking up
    On Thu, Oct 18 at 8:01 PM, Rachel Harrington wrote:
    Things are going great with Blaine and I. He is so laid back and funny. I think you guys will really like him. We’ve been talking about him moving down to London after we finish on the Camino. He’s a DJ so he can pretty much work anywhere. I don’t know if I would have been able to do this without him.

    To M & D, Lizzie, Adam, Brandi K
    Solitude
    On Mon, Oct 22 at 5:12 PM, Rachel Harrington wrote:
    Our group has been splitting up a lot lately, there seem to be more routes to choose from now. Blaine and I left Calzada de los Hermanillos yesterday morning at 8 am which is actually a little late for us to get started and yet there was not a soul moving in the entire town. It was almost spooky. One of our friends was staying in the municipal albergue (we had stayed in a private one) and we knew she didn’t have any food for breakfast because she didn’t get to THE store (it was a really tiny quiet town) in time. So we stopped there to give her some food and it was completely dark, no one around, even though everyone’s shoes were all still sitting out front. So we left some bread and chips on her shoes and kept going. Talked to her later and she didn’t know where they came from so she threw them in the garbage. Eventually we figured out what had happened. We think it must have been daylight savings time today.
    On our way out of Mansilla we met up with a German guy we met back in Pamplona, thought he was long gone. But he apparently got sick (all over the floor of a crowded dorm), got moved to a private room and was holed up for two whole days. He was just hitting the trail again when we ran into him, saying goodbyes to the hotel owners like they were his long lost family. People get close quick on this thing.

    To Brandi K
    Need your help
    On Tue, Oct 23 at 9:41 PM, Rachel Harrington wrote:
    Hey, could you do me a favour? I need you to casually ask around at the office and find out if there are any rep positions opening up in Edinburgh. I’m considering moving up there after this, because Blaine kind of needs to stay there since he has a lot of steady gigs and that. Let me know ! 

    To M & D, Lizzie, Adam, Brandi K
    Grape harvest
    On Thu, Oct 25 at 6:55 PM, Rachel Harrington wrote:
    Apparently there was NOT a time change this past Sunday, and we still haven’t figured out why everyone in one particular town decided to have a lay-in on the same day. Besides that, though, we have been hiking through some really beautiful scenery lately. This is