Day 53 - Bercianos - September 6 - Day 6 of 15

Day 53 - Bercianos - September 6 - Day 6 of 15

This morning came earlier than usual. But we stumbled out of bed and got water and milk heated for coffee and tea, tostado made and all the jam, margarine, Nutella, oh, set out for breakfast. The pilgrims came and filled the dining room with the sweet sounds of comraderie in many different languages. The sounds of "Buen Camino," hugs and kisses floated through the front door. It is a lovely way to start the day. 

Then everyone was gone and the cleaning began. It took us all morning to clean. We finished moments before 1:30 when we opened the door to waiting pilgrims. I don't know about Rosa and Maria, but I'm dead tired. I had to take a siesta. It wasn't very long because an English speaking pilgrim came in and I heard "Nancy, please." 

And we got our first dog today, sorry Daniel. We have a little dog house attached to the albergue, but we haven't had any dogs. So this guy walks up with a dog and I say "Hola perro, a d the guy says it's a perra. And I suppose since the perra is walking the Camino it's a Perragrina! She even has her own little sleep mat in the dog albergue. 

We had a wild time at the Bercianos del Real Camino albergue tonight. Jorge who is the parish priest said mass at the church and did the pilgrim's blessing. I was at the albergue getting dinner ready. After mass Jorve and a visiting priest came to eat dinner with us. We had thirty six pilgrims from a lot of different countries, including Korea. One young woman from Ireland, Neve, was having a birthday, so she had Happy Birthday sung in Spanish, English, Italian and French. Neve and I sat together at dinner. She had lived in Chicago for three years and loved it, but thought the winters were a little cold. Yeah, I think so too.  After dinner Jorge got everyone to sing a song from their country. The Aussies sang Waltzing Matilda, of course. It was all a hoot! 

While we were cleaning up with the help of the pilgrims. Two different English speaking pilgrims came up with questions and so I heard "Nancy, please twice in a short period of time. It made me laugh and I said "este es mi nombre, "cómo se llama? Nancy Please" And we all had a Good laugh. It's a standing joke now. They pronounce Nancy differently than we do. Merusa told Jorge that tomorrow she was going to take her first English lesson from me. News to me. 

Merusa and Rosa called me into the kitchen and told me tomorrow were going into Sahagún before we do the cleaning and do the grocery shopping at the supermercado and have breakfast. It doesn't get much more exciting than that here in the pueblo. It's a different life. 

I think I'm going to try to sum up some of the lessons that have been presented to me, whether I've learned them or not, or learned this version of them even, only time will tell. But right now it's time to get some sleep. Rebekah tells me there are lots of pigeons headed this way. Night all, eep thought and don't. Let the . . . Whoops, better not say that one on the Canino.