Camino Norte 2024

Moments in Time One of the interesting things about the Camino de Santiago is how it becomes a mix of snapshots in time, and also a overarching experience to life. Each camino is a broad brush of feelings of wonderment and exhaustion, comradeship and isolation and so on. But it is also a crystal-clear memory of a person or an experience or a view or a deep look inside. This is what inspired the following memoir about high school. Snapshots  I can not believe how much of three years of my high school life that I do not remember. I have memoired about some big moments at King’s Preparatory Catholic High School:  Mr Weber’s library and how I felt safe there Dachau Concentration Camp Ovens (Dec 2022) I never felt more unsafe in my life. Sr Marie Aimee teaching me Spanish - little knowing the importance of that language later in life Thru-hiked Extremdura, Spain. Entering Castile y Leon I loved speaking Spanish, instead of relying on English. a song about California and running aw...

  Preps @ 5 Weeks To Go   Tasks Verify more than 6 months left on passport before it is expired. Read up on current Schengen Zone requirements. ETIAS will not be required in 2024. Validate Global Entry and NYS Drivers License. Travel Insurance: make sure it includes emergency medical coverage ( >= $150,000) and medical Evacuation ( >= $500,000 ).  Selected the Hancock Silver Plan @ $246.00. Order credential(s) from American Pilgrims on the Camino. Prob should have done this 2 weeks ago. Update CBP MPC app (for Customs Declaration) and Global Entry app (for immigration). Download offline maps for Irun to Oviedo. Verify expire dates on any credit/debit cards. Vaccinations / immunizations up to date. Prescriptions filled. Car Registration and Vehicle Inspection Lodging for arrival and one rest day. Open a .gpx file in google maps (browser). Open google drive. Navigage to the folder where you want to put the gpx map. New -> More -> Google My Maps (now availab...

Does The Camino Mirror Art? I think this is a relevant title for an event back in my high school years that taught me something about life. It is a lesson that the Camino de Santiago further re-inforced for me. Don't be afraid to face new ideas; work through it. Don't think that the unknown is dangerous; safely explore. *** I asked my partner to do a proof read of this memoir. Her suggestsions are in the next paragraph. (Editor Notes:) Interesting and timely theme. I’d suggest focusing on the details, making the events you experience and care about vivid for the reader before commenting on them. This will allow the reader to enter the event with you and participate in your experience and learning. I am also thinking that by the end of this, I should have some sense of who the “devil” might be and how you’ve developed sympathy for the devil. Protestors and Chicago Police Officers in Grant Park  DPLA/National Archives at Chicago,  Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Sympathy f...

California Dreamin' on the Camino de Santiago On many of my camino walks, one of the songs that I have sung to myself (when no one else can hear) is the famous song " California Dream' " by The Mamas and The Papas. To me, the song is not so melancholic but hopeful. That may sound strange, given the lyrics, but in my interpretation, the subject of the song is merely reflecting on the purpose and/or purposelessness of his life.  Many of us on the Camino are reflecting on something: life, love, liberty, longing, lonliness and probably many more "L" words. (Photo from : https://www.california.com/most-beautiful-beaches-california/ ) California Dreamin'  Intro I was at a King’s Prep High School reunion, and overheard someone remark that he did not understand why we sang “California Dreamin’ at our school masses. That is a fair question. I guess we sang it because the 2nd verse mentions a church and praying and a preacher and a penitent who somehow is “saved”...

Shakespeare and The Camino  In high school I had to tackle Shakespeare's R&J. Only many years later did I see the pay-off for the hard work in digging into what is behind the play.  There have been many days, more so since I have been walking the Camino outside of Spain, where the pay-off seemed distant if not impossibly far away. Anyway I share this memoir because Shakespeare and the Camino have something in common: they are both very very hard and very very beautiful. Aragon: July 2023 Romeo and Juliet  Intro In my sophomore year at King’s Preparatory High School, English had the usual combination of vocabulary, grammar and, of course, American and Foreign Literature.  I know the Bard of Avon, the great William Shakespeare, was English, but the English in which he wrote was a foreign language to me.  Sr Carol This story concerns Sister Carol Cimino, School Sisters of St Joseph. The odd twist is that, according to my yearbooks, she taught History and Econo...