Pilgrammage to Mecca (or Santiago de Compostela)

Well the group embarked last Tuesday for another 5 day trip, only this time we made our way to the north. Our final destination was the region of Galicia deriving from Galic, or in other words the land of my ancestors! right? well maybe not so much, because Spanish is Spanish, but the region was settled by some Celts. Hence why I could hear bagpipes playing in one of the plazas! In Gallego the language spoken there they are called prazas, cool fact. Ok so the history behind the pilgrimage thing... Santiago de Compostela is the very place where St. James' bones lie. Or so it is believed in the Catholic church. It has become the third main pilgrimage site in the Catholic world. People travel from all over the world to visit this cathedral. They come by way of walking, riding bikes, some drive. All the pilgrims we talked to had walked! We met some awesome guys probably in their late twenties that had been walking for a month from southern France. They said they averaged about 20-25 miles a day! When they walked into the plaza in front of the cathedral, we yelled bien hecho, felicidades to them. They came over and talked to us. One was from Italy, there was a bit of a language barrier, I think he spoke Italian, Spanish, and English to us! He sat and talked to us about the journey. He started all by himself, and had met the other two guys along the way. They were both from Cadiz, southern coast of Spain. We got a picture with them. Wow it was so cool to meet all of these people who sacrificed all that to experience this religious moment! To me, walking 2 miles of the camino de santiago and arriving at the cathedral was cool, but I can't imagine what it means to these members of the Catholic church who really make a sacrifice. I learned a lot from talking to people this week. There are so many good people out there we were warmly accepted everywhere we went in the North. People would stop us on the streets to tell us something about their town, or we would ask them questions and they would help us with whatever we needed. We were given free pastries, a cute farmer gave us a lemon from his tree to make lemonade, they were just interested in us having the best experience possible. I think Maria, a lady we befriended at her pastry shop put it best when we thanked her and commented on her kindness she said, "Somos todos hermanos y hermanas, y tenemos la resposibilidad ser buen personas y ser simpaticas a todos." We are all brothers and sisters and we have the responsibility to be good people and be nice to all we meet. I was so grateful for my ability to communicate in another language, because it has been the tool to meet so many amazing people here in Spain. People all over the world are happy and are trying to be good people, and that was something I could relate with despite the language barrier! P.S. I ate octopus here is a picture yikes! I can't believe it, where are my senses going on eating?