Bryan

(From 3 days ago...)

We only walked for one hour today. Thought it would be nice to spend a day in the city of Ponferrada and to give our bodies a small rest. Ponferrada is known for its Templar Castle, which we of course visited. I still baffles me how old everything is here – considering Canada of course, whose history is minute compared to that of Spain. Walking the stone barricades and peeking through the soldiers corridors I seemed to breathe in a different kind of air. There is subdued authority and power still lingering on the ruins there. The day was dark itself, which cast an even more fairy-like spell. Very cool indeed. Though we didn’t meet any authentic Templar knights, we may have met the next best thing: Bryan.

35 year old Bryan, balding but with a ponytail, graced us with his presence during our stay at the San Nicolas Albergue in Ponferrada. Bryan is the Hospitalera at the albergue (which basically means he greets pilgrims when they arrive, stamps their passports, makes sure they have everything they need, and clean up after we all leave. Repeat.), though he isn’t the big boss. Bryan, being the young hip dude he is, decided to take a select few of us out for some drinks “after hours” (generally at Albergues they close & lock the door at around 11:00 p.m… so if you go out at night, you sure ain’t getting back in!!) So we were pretty much VIPs rolling with all the right connections. It was a great night out, the first we have had of this kind. We hung out with some sweet folks and drank a lot of wine. The bartender kicked us out eventually, and sent us home with another free bottle of wine (I swear wine is as plentiful as water around these parts). We came home, drank more wine, and feasted upon bread and cheese. Bryan even whipped up some scrambled eggs. Yum Yum.

That night, before departing to our beds, we got another surprise: A visit from the REAL boss who was sleeping upstairs. It was a bit frightening to have an old fragile Spanish man, wearing a white onesie, speak harshly (in Spanish). Poor Bryan, I think we may have got him in a bit of trouble… Anyways, it was all fine and well in the end. We went to bed, slept gloriously and woke the next morning to another big walk! Hurrah!