Brock { Abroad }

I just took  a long bike ride through Rotterdam to say goodbye. I even took some photos of the brute beauty. The train ticket is bought. The bag is packed. I find myself yet again in another moment of movement. Read the rest of this entry »

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It only took me five hours to get to Tineo; except it was through a combination of cow shit and mud. So, I’m still not sure if a short day through shit is better than a long day without shit, but it all depends on how you look at it, I suppose. I take an inventory of my accessories as I pull out my utterly useless almost brand-new Nike sneakers that take up almost half my bag. I slip them on to celebrate my first arrival to a village before nightfall. I realize how lucky I am to have been loaned this nifty little pack from Mac, my American friend in France. It seems to me that when things work out so easily, there is a reason. I consider it a moment that gives just a little more light on the path, to let you know that you’re headed in the right direction. Although I’m not the most prepared and definitely had my priorities all wrong in the beginning, I can see a little light on the path ahead.

As for just getting the bag, compressing some clothes, and strapping it on, all I had to do was take the first step and here I am… The weather conditions have been unusually pleasant. This morning, from a barmaid, I got the scoop. My main sources of ‘scoop’ on this route so far have been from barmaids. It had been raining there the entire past week! I sure ‘lucked out!’ I thought back to my sort of ‘grey’ week in London before the trip. Frankly, that was nothing compared to having a week of rain on this already muddy route.

I stop to eat a bocadillo. Starting yet another ascent into large patches of fog, I enter a village and notice muddy wooden clogs outside the doors of quaint homes with beautiful wild flowers growing haphazardly in the nooks and crannies of the entries.  As if borrowed from another culture, the numerous buildings next to most of the homes look Japanese. I call them ‘Zen pads’ because of their flat square shape and placement on low stilts. I later learn that they are used to store harvested goods, but sort of preferred their previous mystery. I pass an old pilgrim’s hospital turned albergue. Perched atop the highest point, it overlooks Grado, the town I spent the previous night in. I stop to admire the view as two gentlemen, the owners, appear from the building with cigarettes and coffee in hand. They offer me a cup as we gaze out in silence over the landscape half-hidden by fog. Relaxed, I say goodbye. In unison, they wish me a ‘bon camino’as I saunter forward. Read the rest of this entry »

I hopped on a plane for Europe knowing what I was passionate about and determined to find a way to make the terms on which I wanted to live my life and the the things I truly cared about work together. I ended up in Rotterdam, Netherlands a few months ago, where I first heard of Knowmads through a friend I’d made with my couchsurfing host. After putting down more and more of myself on paper, I knew it was time to take those thoughts moving. It had been almost four years since I’d been back to Spain, a year of enormous self-growth studying and living with a Spanish family in the south. A month later, I left Rotterdam to complete the Camino de Santiago, an over 300 kilometer walk through northern Spain.

I soon began to understand what Nietzsche meant when he said “Never trust a thought that didn’t come by walking.” Read the rest of this entry »

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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Passing the sight of water crashing along eroding cliffs, night soon began to shroud the mountaintop farms with grazing goats dotting the landscape. Soon, I drift off. Four hours later, I found myself dismounting a very comfortable bus where I was able to stretch out on the empty seat next to me for a make-shift bed. I find the motion of trains, planes, buses, and automobiles very soothing and can actually sleep much better in them than strange beds and sofas in foreign places. I realize just how comforting I find the act of moving to the point of leaving my home for extended periods of time to do so. Upon my exit from the warm shelter of the bus, I am welcomed to the city of Oviedo by rain; reinforcing the idea that this is no welcome home party. After finding a cheap room, I descend into the street and wander as nostalgically as I can through streets of a country that doesn’t seem at all familiar to me anymore. I find the cathedral, quite a beautiful centerpiece to the city, and watch the scene unfold behind water-blotted spectacles. Read the rest of this entry »

I wake up with a headache to the sound of a jackhammer chopping up the street below me. There are seven cigarette butts in the ashtray on my bedside table. One is standing straight up. I cross the drab and empty room and enter the bathroom to release my full bladder. There is a streak in the bowl from my violent reaction to a whole round of camembert cheese I crammed into a baguette, my final meal in France and proof that I am incredibly intolerant of lactose. There are curly black hairs stuck to the still damp bathtub and my clothes are laid out on the dresser next to some brochures for the Guggenheim museum, an architectural gem I’ve been waiting to see for years. It was an off start to my first day ‘home’, to say the least. To say the most, I felt pretty damn lonely; and I couldn’t understand why. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

My first reaction upon my arrival in Spain was: “Wow! I’m finally hot again!” My second reaction was:  “Wow! People are actually in walking in the streets past 10 p.m.!” I had arrived to San Sebastian, a laid-back resort city on the beach with grande glasses of wine gorged with tiny tapas by tourists that still existed well into November. I sat down in a swanky hotel bar near the bus station and helped myself to a copy of El Mundo, ordered a glass of rioja priced at slightly more than 1€, selected a pack of lucky strikes from the machine next to me at a cost of less than 3€, and sat down at the bar as I lit my cigarette, took a sip of the vino, and remembered just how good the Spanish life is.

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