St. James Way

25th Hiking Day

On the way from Nogaro to Aire-sur-l'Adour. This »foie gras« is so disgusting. Had the worst meal so far yesterday. In addition, sat next to a married couple from Freiburg (3 chickens at home) for the second time in a row. Conservation topics so weird! E and D: »Oh, the food is delicious. Look, they put celery in here too." "Oh, and with dates as well. But that's also delicious.” “So really really delicious. ”And so on. There was something really shallow about it. That was only the first evening. The next evening - probably justified - grumbling about a pizzeria that was too dark, sour wine and that vegetarians only get omelettes or goat cheese here. I can already tell that he is so fed up with that woman and I have to agree with him. She is pretty negative. But I don't care about that. It's these shallow topics of conversation that I can't get out of my head! They must have known each other for years and yet they act as if they were trying to make it through an uncomfortable silence on the first date. Well, not a world-shattering topic either. I don't want to deduce any principle for myself from this. But as a matter of fact it was weird. Met Donald, a Canadian, at breakfast this morning. As an introduction: "How is your Camino so far?" Good man, good introduction. I have to remember that. Sometimes I still don't have the tools I need for conversations. Otherwise, as always, baguette strapped to the backpack. For lunchtime I will have 4 sausages frankfurter-style.

Also another experience from the first days with Dana and Peter, the two Australians. Older couple, absolutely friendly. He's talking about Jerusalem and Japan all the time. And for my taste he judges entire societies in a way that is far too undifferentiated. But at dinner he just cannot stop with his travel reports, while the mountain of casserole on his plate just doesn't get any smaller. Everyone else was already done with eating and could have moved on to dessert. Dana sits across from Peter and hardly says anything. But in between you could hear her giving impatient instructions to Peter. “Eat it. Now eat it. Eat it,” she hisses urgently yet with low voice. But I bet it was not just me who heard that. She was just totally annoyed. It didn't annoy me really that we had to wait for Peter. But I could understand Dana's behaviour a lot. Most likely since 30 years of marriage, she is bound to listen to the same stories for the thousandth time and each time she has to wait for Peter to finally finish his casserole. By the way, the next day when I ate a terribly bad Croque Monsieur, I somewhat overheard that Peter had complained to Dana that she was always doing something that seemed to annoy him. I cannot recall exactly. But well, after probably 30 years of marriage that can happen, I would say. However! Yesterday. E and D from Freiburg, that was uncomfortable. And they only had 2 days of 3 Camino weeks behind them. I guess everything has advantages and disadvantages.

One moment ago, while showering, I had a feeling like I could embrace the whole wide world. What a beautiful day. I must have read the French book for an entire hour while hiking. Most of the time I walked through the forest. I enjoy to decipher new French words just by the context. Then a French woman took a nice photo of me sitting in front of a church. Although at first I firmly refused. But she insisted: "pour la famille." I am very grateful now. Then I met three Frenchmen from Montpellier. Just spoke a tiny bit in French. And now I am in this wonderful gîte, which once has been a chapel. Just an awesome day.