How it ends

Well, I bit the bullet at lunch in Melide today, and asked the waiter when the bus to Santiago was.  2 pm, across the street.  I have to be in Madrid to catch a flight on Saturday, so I was running out of time.  Having serious foot issue (on the bus here, my foot was painfully swelling in my boot.  I had a woman holding a  sleeping baby next to me, and was trying to not knock into her so wasn't able to loosen the too tight laces to get some relief from the pain.)

I crossed the street and ordered a coffee in the bar adjacent to the bus stop.  He made a big heart in the foam, which made me cry, maybe I'll get around to that.  I've just been feeling emotional the past couple of days.  While putting my pack back on my back to walk out of the bar, I knocked over a chair and ripped my watch off of my wrist, breaking the strap in the process.  I gathered them up, and then I did catch the bus.

This morning I was sure I could make it to Arzua (why, I don´t know), but I was lurching along because my foot was swollen, and then my pack fit funny.  Everyone was blowing past me.  On the bright side, I got to see the inside of a church I had never found open before.  And finally got a picture of the crucifix in Fuerlos with one had reaching down and one reaching up.  Yesterday, I felt ready to be home suddenly.  So, I guess I am.  And I hope I feel I´m done, and don´t itch for completion.  Someone said earlier that I could still get a compostela, maybe I´ll check tomorrow.  Maybe it doesn't matter.

Caught a local bus, then decided I should walk (and it´s bloody hot out again!)  Re-oriented myself to town, and walked up to the big albergue up on the hill, only to be told by a man walking away from it that it was full (there must be a big group there, that place is huge!)  And he told me to just follow him.  He eventually called the place he was looking for, and the woman held two beds.  Ironically, it´s back by the bus station.

I had lunch at Garnacha (famous for pulpo), ended up being joined by a couple of cyclists from Alicante.  We had a good conversation.  I find it curious that I have had more meaningful conversations with people I don´t necessarily speak the same language as (broken spanish and broken english) than I have had in a long time.  I guess you have to really listen, so that connects you, and you may never see each other again.  And yet, somehow I keep randomly running into people I know or recognize, I realize it´s the camino route, but I´ve also skipped a bunch of it because I didn´t have enough time to do the whole thing, which was odd in falling in-and-out of being a peregrino...but maybe that´s all a random judgement anyway.  Who really knows their own heart and motivations much less anyone else´s? (And is it wrong on my sixth Camino to want to pick and choose my experiences?)

Funny that, I was listening to a man talking in the kitchen here, and I took a good look at him, and I said, "I know you!"  We´d met and eaten dinner together a couple of weeks ago in Villamayor de Monjardin.  We all have gotten injured, his friend from Sweden (hurt his knees), Michael from Ireland (tendonitis), and me, (shin splints and a swollen foot.)  The Swedish man was going to go to Barcelona.  Michael is flying home tomorrow, and I am either catching a bus or train tomorrow.