Tuesday, August 31, 2010

August 26, 2010

My sister and Adam drove me to the airport. Arrived quite early. Check in was uneventful (except I forgot to take my boarding pass after putting it down when I repacked my bag after going through U.S. customs. One of the security officers tracked me down to give it to me. They really were quite friendly.

Since I was early I had time to start reading ¨The Camino Letters¨. A book written by Julie Kirkpatrick, a lawyer from Southern Ontario who walked the camino with her daughter in 2009. Julie did a book signing and reading at Rand and McNally on Sun. Aug. 22. Her presentation was very touching and I am so glad that I was able to go. She gave me an extra book to give to Tomas and Antonio in Manjarin. Their story is Chapter 11 of the book, so of course that is where I started reading.

Friday, August 13, 2010

How it came about that I should walk the Camino de Santiago

I first heard about the Camino de Santiago from a co-worker whose husband was planning on walking the camino 2 years ago. At first I just thought how interesting. Then I heard about it from a couple other people. I starting reading about it and watching youtube vidoes and I knew that this was something I had to do.

A few months ago I planned to walk downtown and back to build up endurance (16.8 km - a short walk). I thought I would go to the library to see if they had any new books on the camino then on to Hull's Book Store to see if they had any new books by one of my favorite authors (Joyce Rupp). The library did not have any books on the camino that I hadn't already read, so I left empty handed. I went on to Hulls. I saw that Joyce Rupp did in fact have a new book out called "Walk in a Relaxed Manner". I thought "how appropriate". When I picked it up and looked a little closer, I saw that she was writing about her experience while walking the Camino de Santiago. It kinda made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I think someone was trying to tell me something. Anyway, it is a very good book - I read it a couple of times, some parts even three or four times.

Initially I did not intend to do a blog. However, so many people asked to keep in touch by email or phone, so I thought I would just write a blog and send out the url and if people want to know where I was they could follow the blog (I will try very hard to keep it up).

I will be leaving Winnipeg Thurs. Aug. 26th. That is less than two weeks away. When I started talking about it two years ago, it seemed so far away, it is hard to believe that the time has come to actually go.