Brock { Abroad }

I wake up to a cloudy day in Oviedo, ready to begin the camino. After printing off some information on the route, the owner of the cybercafe hands me the papers and tells me to get ready for a wet walk. I laugh it off and walk out of the overcast city. Twenty minutes later, I find myself heading onto a freeway towards oncoming traffic and admit defeat. I never have been good with maps. Turning around, I re-enter the city and walk towards someone who can point me in the right direction. I see a nun nearby, and not only does she give me directions, the dear sister walks me to a nearby tourist office informing me that I need to get my pilgrim passport. I’d read about this, but didn’t see a real need to have a piece of paper from a tourism office to validate my experience. I thank the nun and get information and a fairly beautiful phamplet to fill with stamps from cities along the way. On the front, there’s a quote that reads:

El que va a Santiago

y no va al Salvador

visita al criado

y deja al Señor.

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My next movement, at approximately 11.30 p.m. was through more mountains- except I was now hurtling downwards into an actual city. “This is Bilbao?” I ask the guy sitting next to me who I’ve been talking to for most of the ride. He’s been telling me about his city when I prompt him, otherwise he’s been asking me a lot of questions about the United States. He finally arrives at the most common question I get from foreigners. “So, do you prefer Europe or America?”

“ Let me put it this way,” I tell him, “I’ve learned to say the grass is always greener on the other side in a lot of different languages.”  Read the rest of this entry »