Bocadillos

For those of you who don´t know Spanish, a bocadillo is basically a sandwich made with baguette bread rather than sliced bread. It´s one of the standard cheaper fares that you can get pretty much anywhere on the Camino, which means most pilgrims are sick of them within the first week. Last night I ran into my friend from New Jersey and after watching an hour-long film about the part of the Cathedral that´s being restored at the moment we went to a restaurant whose menu promised seafood paella. I have to hand it to Spanish restaurants because I imagine they waste a lot less food, but unfortunately this meant they were out of paella. So, despite my statement while looking at the menu that I didn´t think I could take another bocadillo, we both ordered them and had what turned into a 3-hour talk that was one of the best I´ve had on the Camino. She´s very much in love with Jesus (a refreshing person to be around on the Camino!) and we discussed various facets of God and his beauty and our experiences on the Camino. After we finished and I made a motion to get my wallet out, she said "Don´t even think about it" and treated me as well. Very good night.
When I returned to the pension where I´m staying, I had a few minutes of distress when I couldn´t open the front door with the key. There was a keypad next to the door, so I thought maybe there was a code I had missed because I wasn´t paying attention or something. I went over to the local bar to get a hot chocolate (I´m stopping my caffeine habit now that I´m finished walking, plus I don´t need help with digestion anymore since I´m eating falafel at least once every day) and watched for someone to enter so I could get them to let me in as well. Once I finished my drink I went back and quickly realized I had simply not put the key in all the way and I could get in just fine. I sure hope my brain starts working again.
This pension is great because I have a room and bathroom to myself, but I feel that this is an appropriate time to talk about the fact that I am at least a head taller than almost every Spaniard I´ve seen. There are literally some older women who come up to my belly button. I say this because I am on the top floor of the pension and have to deal with a sloped ceiling in the bathroom, which makes things a bit uncomfortable. Even in the shower, which has the highest ceiling, my hair just barely brushes it if I stand up straight. But any place where I can walk around in just a towel while I do my laundry is just fine with me! I even slept in the same clothes that the hobbits wore after Tom Bombadil freed them from the barrow-wight (note that I put that sentence in nerd code so most people can´t be shocked or offended).
This morning I walked around the modern city looking for the place where I used internet my first day here because it´s cheaper than the place next to the old city, but ended up walking around aimlessly for about an hour. After my search I returned to the old city and got a falafel and liter of orange juice (despite my utter lack of respect for Froiz due to their false advertising ["Siempre a su servicio," my blister! Why did I have to go to a bar for dinner on Pentecost, then?], I still got the juice from them) for lunch and a miniature tarta Santiago (it´s a really good, moist kind of almond cake). (That sentence will probably take a while for you all to read due its double-layed parenthetical statements [which seem to be getting more and more frequent the more tired I get], so I´ll forgive you if you have to come back tomorrow to finish reading this entry.)
After that I wandered toward to the cathedral with a vague thought that perhaps I might see my German friend before she flies home, and sure enough up walk her and my New Jersey friend! Apparently she had actually just told New Jersey that she wanted to see me one last time as well, so talk about Providence! The three of us had lunch and then said a quick good-bye to avoid too much visible emotion and now New Jersey and I are waiting for our 7:00 tour of the Cathedral rooftop, which ought to be really spectacular.
The weather has not been great during the day (evenings and nights, for whatever atmospheric reason, are usually clear), so I probably will spend the majority of my time in the Cathedral and perhaps in the other museums of the city that I didn´t get to see last time. I checked the price of Kung Fu Panda, and it´s about equivalent to the USA price or perhaps a dollar more, so I will probably not pay extra to see it in a foreign language and wait to enjoy it in English. I´m hoping to meet my Korean friend from Los Arcos "randomly" any day now, but we´ll see. I don´t have too much else to say, so God bless!