Tuesday, July 5, 2011

July 5

We are back in porto and will hit the city after breakfast. the hostel is beautiful and the flight from munich uneventful-
Tomorrow we are homeward bound. Yea. Will be good to sleep in my own bed again.

Monday, July 4, 2011

Happy July 4th to all our american friends

Dachau was cold, windy and drizzly, fitting for a memorial of this sort. according to the literature the german motto was repress and forget, but a group of survivors decided that there needed to be a memorial and so they rallied the troops and one was opened in the 60.s. it is a fitting memorial...horrible and interesting...not sugar coated, but real. very well done.
back to the residence of the king,s after...terribly ostentatious, and then beer with a british couple. he had lived in toronto as part of his studies, co-op I think, but his job was moving furniture for CBC at night. he got fired for being too noisy and took a job as a security guard. he lived in the beaches with a bunch of guys, and when they took back their beer empties the guy told them that they had to have a special events license for that much beer. we had dinner at the bar..oh my god liver.to die for.

Today we went on a walking tour. The guide was fabulous. We learned so much about the history of munich. he was irish by the way. afterwards we went for a beer and spent a good amount of time talking to an older gentleman who was born in munich, but spent some time years ago when he was working in ottawa. he worked for a company that actually printed canadian money.

dinner last night was so delicious that we reproduced it tonight. the liver was equally as fab. back at the hotel. we will catch the bus to memmingen and off to porto tomorrow night.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

July 3

Saltzburg was beautiful...just as you would imagine. all about mozart and the sound of music, which interestingly enough the germans know nothing about, or choose to ignore.
By the time we got back we decided to grab a bite around the hotel. we went out exploring and discovered that we are staying in the Turkish neighbourhood. Lots of great little markets and doner kebab places. that might have been our choice , but they were predominantly packed, and mostly with males. Instead we grabbed a piece of pizza, the best I have ever had, go figure, all the way to germany to get great pizza. Mine was prosciutto, arugula and parm, and after he heated it he grated on more parm and drizzled it with balsamic...yum.

We are off to Dachau this morning. probably not the most uplifting day, but it should be interesting. I will report back.

Friday, July 1, 2011

July 2

Hope everyone has recovered from a really fun Canada Day. Lunch at the beergarden was great. I had a typical german meal...pig´s knuckle, coleslaw and a dumpling. Yum. We met two fun young guys from here, but one of them spoke perfect english as he had lived in Alaska for 6 years and has dual citizenship. We asked him if he would ever go back but he said he would never leave Bavaria. We have discovered that the Bavarian´s are a little bit elitist...they think that they are a notch above the rest of the germans. inteseting. they bought us a Willi...a pear schnappes shooter with a piece of fresh pear in it. nice young men.

The hotel is really nice. No longer pilgrims but full-fledged tourists. explored the main area of munich last night. actually a really pretty city with a kick-ass rail and subway system. we met a man from chicago here on business, he works for wrigley´s, and we spent a pleasant hour chatting politics, the economy and the like.

The hotel has an all you can eat breakfast and it is amazing. as well as everything else that you would expect I had pickled herring with beets, crab salad, some fab cheeses and chocolates. We are off to saltzburg this morning to relive the Sound of Music. I will report back
July 1

HAPPY CANADA DAY from munich

We arrived here at midnight last night. Fortunately the hostel was right by the bus stop. after dropping our bags we braved the drunken souls to find a bite to eat, things had pretty well closed up so we ended up at .......................Burger King!!!!

Off to Starnberg this morning in the drizzling rain. We have had to nix our walking plans...we just couldn.t make the whole distance in time, and there is no bus help in the middle of the way so we will stay in Munich for 4 nights and enjoy the city. We finally managed to find a hotel room so we are good to go.

Off to lunch at the Beergarden. Will be in touch.

We so miss the camino and our Camino friends. Take care.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

June 30

We are at the airport on Porto waiting for our flight to Munich. it is a beautiful new airport and after i finish mucking about here we will go and eat.

santiago was as wonderful as i remember. we got our compestellas...i now have three....if that doesn´t fast track me i don´t know what will.

we went back to our usual haunt for dinner. that is the third celebratory dinner that we have had there. That is more times than i have been to any particular restaurant in aurora. There were 11 of us and of course a good time was had by all. The german girls gave my ankle a healing session, and i must say it is feeling much better.

Happy Canada day to all. The next note will be from Germany.

Buen camino

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

June 29,

We are in santiago!!!!!! Made it all the way on foot thanks to great weather and good friends. We were able to get rooms together for a good price and will go out for dinner tonight. We went to the Pilgrim mass at noon and it was great as always. it is quite a different feeling arriving from porto than st. jean. not the same emotion.

We dined in the botanical gardens with the gang in calda de reis....bread, cheese, meat and wine. A good time was had by all. we got up at 5 the next morning to put in a 30 plus day to get us closer to santiago. The weather was cool and overcast, good walking weather, however i think that my boots are at the end of their life, and after 18 or so kilometres the banging on my feet, hips and back is rough. I got to teo and crashed for 3 hours. Today i purchased new insoles that are nice and gelly so i should be good to go again.

After a long walk and snooze yesterday we found a really nice restaurant for dinner. Out in the middle of nowhere with tableclothes on the table, a waiter in an apron to the ground, and napkins that were served with a fork and spoon. The food was great and we had a good time.

A day off from walking will be great as i have developed an infection from heat poisining on my ankle and it makes it a bit painful to walk. picked up some antibiotic cream today so should be as good as gold tomorrow.

Until then greetings from Santiago.

We aren´t pilgrims any more