At 5:00am I heard Becky up and quietly preparing to leave. Sally must have also heard, got up and made a cup of tea.
Becky had to get to the train station for her 7:55 train to Madrid so she was out the door by 6:30am. We lazed in bed reading and writing for a few minutes. Sally showered. I followed. We were out the door about 8:30am, headed to the cathedral for 9:30am mass. We had met a group of high school kids from a catholic school in Ohio a few days ago. They told us they had paid the $500 fee to have the swingy thingy (botofumrie) do it’s thingy at the 9:30am mass this morning. That’s why we were there.
Last time we were here the church was being worked on in preparation for the upcoming holy year. (The pandemic hit and it didn’t happen.) We could get inside but couldn’t see anything, although you could get access to the alter and St. James’ crypt and coffin. This time it was all on display-the altar, the swingy thingy and the entire church. It was impressive.
We sat through the mass, even though it was in Spanish and got to see the swingy thingy do it’s thingy. After the mass we toured St. James’ crypt with John and Fran.
From the church we headed across town to the bus/train station so Sally would know how to get there for her bus trip to Muxia Sunday morning. Sally navigated with her phone while I hung back so she had to study the landmarks. We stood in line to inquire about tickets for 20 minutes only to find we were at the wrong bus company. We needed Monbus and we were in Alsa. We will buy them online. However, Sally bought her ticket to Muxia. We just couldn’t get our Fisterra to Santiago tickets.
We walked back from the bus depot and stopped at the grocery store. I was really tired walking back. We made it back to our AirB&B. I wrote a bit in my blog and then both Sally and I took naps.
It was now early evening, about 5:00pm. We walked up into town along the route we followed coming in yesterday. We had a goal in mind. We had seen a Chinese shop where we knew stuff would be cheap. We wanted to buy stuff for the friends we had coming in tomorrow-Tom, Nicki, Melissa, Cindy, and Rose. We bought poster board to make a sign welcoming the “Mayor and Mayoress of the Camino”, a sash for the Georgia Boys and then we walked to a flower shop to buy roses for the Melissa, Nicki, Cindy and Rose, then to our room to get the roses in water. Along the way we remembered it was Tom’s birthday. What more appropriate gift to get the man who can drink anyone under the table than a beer glass. We stopped in a bar, the Botafumeiro, to see if they would sell me a glass. Diego the waiter was a lively and talkative 30th year old who told me I could have one for free if I bought a glass of beer. Sally was next door at a trinket shop. I grabbed her and she had a beer to earn Tom’s glass. We ended up staying for half an hour, entertained by Diego’s stories and antics. We went to the apartment. There we rested. Then we walked back to the Donar Kabab shop across from the florist for dinner about 9:00pm. We returned to the square about 9:40pm to see if anybody we knew was there, then went to our room and to bed. Heck of a day.
Parabolic curves in the pipe organ tubes
Stairs leading up behind the altar
Sally lays hands on the statue of St. James the Moor Slayer.
Part of the north side of the church
Church at sunset
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