Sleeping Under the Stars

Hi All,
Sounds great, at least it did to me when I found out that there were no beds at the hostel. After dinner we stayed around talking about all the things that people thrown together talk about and having a very relaxing time.

Sleeping time (10.00) arrived and we all got the "mattresses" down on the concrete balcony floor. The term mattress has to interpreted loosely, it was more of a gym mat than a mattress. I suffer from a lower back problem and need additional cushioning in a mattress to prevent getting back pain by morning. So I added the trusty thermamat I had been carrying but thought never to use. I also, eventually, doubled over the blanket we had been given to ward off an damp that would develop during the early morning and added that to the pile. So prepared to sleep. That was the difficult bit.

Yesterday was Sunday and that is a big day in Spain. When we all bedded down at 10pm (10 guys all on mattreses) there were kids playing football in the church playground. The usual screams, wails and shouts accompanied their delights with the Dad doing a good bit of encouragement. They finished about 11.30 but that did not do much good.

There are two churches in Torres del Rio (why I have no idea. there must be all of 200 people). Both churches have bells that ring on the hour and half hour. The timing of the chimes means that the BIG bells in the BIG church start and the smaller (not wee) bells in the second church kick in about 10seconds later. (I would like to know what fights there were about the order of the bells). During the day this was not noticed but at 10pm it takes on a resounding significance. It had an ever increasing significance at, 10.30, 11.00, 11.30, midnight, etc. etc. These bloody things are bloody loud and there was little if any sleep. There was a full moon and a veritable field of stars, of which I saw quite a lot. More later.
best,
Arthur

An Aside for Renee Bleau:
Renee: You were asking about body and mind and which is harder to control. Physically I am doing pretty well and managing to put the miles in without too much trouble (now that I have sent stuff home). The heat is an absolute killer and if anything that will be my physical undoing.

As to the mind there are two main issues.

The first is missing my wife Margaret and the three girls. I knew I would but did not realise just how much. It is a source of great support to know they are fully behind me on this trip but it is going to be a long time till I see them again (five weeks) and sometimes that weighs heavily.

The second is being out of the comfort zone.

I attended Spanish classes, 3 per week for 5 weeks, at Paisley. It was a great learning time as well as enjoyable and Victoria and Fernando are great teachers. I have been trying my best but my Scottish/Spanisg accent gets some weird looks. It was brought home forcibly to me last night when I went out to shop for food
in this wee village (Torres del Rio) and stood back and let Daniel (the super Frenchman I met that day) order the soup and pasta and chirizo etc. He did this with relative easy, even dicsussing with the grocer (it was a genuine hole in the wall shop out of the 18th Century) the different types of sauce he should have with the pasta, changing their decision on three or four occasions.

I could have probably got away with a straight order, though I ended up with two bloody bocadillos the other day, but could never have entered into such a coversation. It was at that point that I realised how much pressure I had been feeling about not being comfortable with my environment and how much easier this would be if I had a better grasp of the language and the culture. I am getting away with it because most of the other peregrinos speak excellent English and chip in to help out when I make a posterior of myself. So learn the language for real before coming out to do this type of thing.
Hope you are well.
best,
Arthur