Many Meetings 2

Like I mentioned before, I´m rapidly losing my cleverness for titles. Such is life. Honestly, though, I wish I had saved this title for this entry because it´s far more appopriate. I thought when I said goodbye to my "Camino family" in Finisterra that I would meet few other friends from the pilgrimage, but oh how wrong I was! While I was in the square looking around, I got a hug from a French guy (who, nice as he is, sounds like a freight train when he´s asleep), that I´ve been seeing for the past few weeks but never spoke to due to the language barrier. I also saw the cute French couple that we shared a meal with in Terradillos de los Templarios as well as a younger French guy (who actually speaks English) with whom I had a conversation during a break on the way to O´Cebreiro.
While I was waiting to do the rooftop tour with my Jersey friend, I got to see an older Australian woman I met on the Meseta and after the fantastic tour (anyone who goes to Santiago as tourist or pilgrim should do it despite the steep €8 pricetag) we met the person I hoped to see most: my Korean friend! She´s leaving tomorrow, so we will have dinner tonight, but I am thanking God for the opportunity to see her again and hear about her experience on the Camino. She had to meet a group for dinner, so we went and met New Jersey´s Czech "Camino daughter" and another of her friends for dinner and afterwards we shared some cookies and beer (I did not partake in the latter due to my juvenile tastebuds) with some German folks.
I´m not only reuniting with old friends but meeting completely new people as well. This morning I went to get a toast and hot chocolate (no more caffeine, remember) breakfast and had a retired Danish pilgrim I´ve only seen once motion for me to sit with him. His English isn´t very strong, but it´s not surprisingly better than my German, so we had a very nice breakfast together and wished each other a good life when we went our seperate ways (he leaves today to go home). I should mention that this guy walked the entire way in hiking sandals and got no blisters, so now that my boots are just about as toasted as my breakfast I might look into that. The chance for tendonitis is higher, but I think most people only got it because they weren´t drinking enough water, which was never a problem for me. If popular demand forces me to it, perhaps I´ll write a special post about gear in the future.
After breakfast I went to mass (which, I just learned from New Jersey, you´re not supposed to take within an hour of eating... oops), which was very good because it´s much quieter than the touristy noon one. A note on mass: I know I said earlier that I miss the "complete" Communion, but I feel it´s only fair that I explain a bit of what I´ve learned about the Catholic Eucharist. Theologically and doctrinally, Christ is fully present in both elements, so it´s not like I´m missing anything by not getting the wine. Practically, it´s much quicker if only the priest takes the wine, and this is particularly true for the Cathedral because there were easily over 1,000 people at the noon mass I attended and wine would have taken at least another half hour to dispense. So there you go.
Not much else going on now, so I´ll say good morning, good afternoon, and good night. God bless!