Camino de Santiago, dia 8

Tuesday the 30th, we all walked to Muffins Café for a quiet breakfast, then on the trail at 9:20 along city roads with small sidewalks for an hour or more before descending to the coast by Coruxo, along the corniche of the bay.

Then again up a long hill into Vigo. At the outskirts of town Lisa's feet were hurting badly, so I found wi-fi and called an Uber to take the two of us the remaining three miles to Hotel Atlantico, the best hotel of the trip. I sought out a barber for a shave, and Lisa went to a doctor to diagnose her blisters–the doctor bandaged both feet, prescribed antibiotics and gave her a stop-hiking order! She decided, sadly, to remain on the camino, but to Uber between our remaining hotels, then possibly walk our last 10km in to Santiago. Unfortunately, this disqualifies her from the official compostela awarded to pilgrims who walk the last 100km to the church.

That night I ate dinner on my own at Ramen Shifu – unpleasant staff, generic ramen at a franchise restaurant.

Comments

Riding the Bus often

From 201010 Saudi scenes It is ironic that this land of cheap gasoline has so much group transport -- buses. From 201010 Saudi scenes Our housing compound has a Toyota-Coaster bus that takes some to/from school (we usually go earlier and return later, on a similar bus that the school provides). Driver Yahya takes residents on the 90-minute trip down to the Big City shopping every Thursday morning. The above picture shows our group one Thursday, usually going to Ikea or the new Lulu's Hypermarket , or the Dhahran Mall. Coleman rides a different bus every day to and from school -- usually 100 minutes there, 80 minutes back. His bus is evidently an old tourist bus, usually comfortable but a bit dusty. The air-conditioning usually works too well. I've ridden it with him several times, to attend business meetings at the district office. From 201010 Saudi scenes There he is, at 5:45am every morning, at the start of the bus run. Fortunately only about 20 stu...

String Quartet Broken String

We attended a marvelous concert last night, at the Porto Museum of Casa do Infante , a beautifully-renovated 1325 building near the river. At one point it served as a customs house. The government sponsors Portuguese musicians to return from other European orchestras to perform in their homeland. We heard and saw this group play a traditional piece – Haydn string quartet Opus 20 #2. Then the modern Benjamin Britten's Three Divertimenti – the stunning last movement of which they performed as an encore. They performed (and I recorded) the Shostakovich Quartet #9, during which the first-violinist broke a string (it features several strongly-plucked chords!) and had to retreat&repeat!

Música Tunas e Boémia

We attended an unusual concert last night: Música Tunas e Boémia (bands and parties) University student folk-music groups — big groups of 40 and more each! put on a great show of singing, playing, flag-twirling, tambourine-swinging, all at the major (private) concert hall. The most unusual thing about it was that nobody used any electronic device (except for microphone amplification)—no electric guitar or keyboard, no big drum set…every instrument and prop was hand-held. The singing was quite good, given the effort to synchronize 40 voices.

Thomas journals

Search This Blog