Santiago de Compostela

So I arrived in Santiago 2 days ago....and I can´t explain the relief and joy I felt when I first caught site of the city on a hill in Montes de Gozo. The walk into the city was nothing spectacular...since it is a tourist city after all but Lisa and I could not keep the grins off our face...which became even wider when we passed 5 panaderias before even coming close to the Cathedral. Woohoo!

We were late for the pilgrim mass and the cathedral was unfortunately also packed with tourists so there was no space for us. We saw Till and said a quick goodbye(he was heading back to Barcelona that afternoon)before we went to go get our Compostelas...our official certificates that indicate that we have done the Pilgrimage to Santiago. I almost cried when I received it. It was really nice seeing all the pilgrims that have been travelling with us fro the past days. That night after a huge lucnh menu (Seafood noodles and Steak)and almost finishing a whole Tarta de Santiago and a bottle of Ribeiro wine for dinner Lisa and I just stayed indoors to nurse our poor feet that have finally given out on us. We didn´t have much sleep though coz the crazy spanish people like to party till 4am and our place was right outside a cafe-bar.

So, yesterday morning after a breakfast of bocadillos we headed out to check out the stores. Oh my poor bank account. We had to stop and run to the cathedral coz we were going to be late for the mass again. The tears came then after Sue (a Canadian author about the Camino) said some inspiring words to us and then after we had the communion. It is so unreal. Last night we went for a pilgrim menu again where we ended up eating with Grizzly, Anna, Anja and Cathy. Tom, Narelle, Anthony and Fiona came afterwards and we went to a bar with them. We tried to look for a happenin place but Anthony and Lisa weren´t feeling well so everyone just crashed for the night.

Today, being Sunday, everything is closed. Lisa and I finally got the chance to hug the statue of St. James, see his relic and put our palm on the Jesse tree on a cathedral pillar (all pilgrim traditions). On our way back from an escapade to search for the Dia we ran into Josh, Eduardo,Daniel, Newcastley, Grizzly and Cathy which was great. We also ran into the Brazilians (Adriana and Marcella). We are hoping to party with them tonight. There was some sort of rally outside the cathedral and they had really good Venezuelan music. People were singing and dancing which was cool. Fun times.

Tomorrow, we are hoping to hit Finisterre. Hopefully, all our arrangements will work out. The days are counting down before we leave for London then home. It´s been a long trip but I don´t want it to end yet.