Day 8 (?): Sansol-Viana

Sunday, June 23, or 24th…..?

-to hear the recorded version of this blog post, please click on the link here.-

 Last night I stayed in the restored palace in the town of Sansol. It's huge and glorious and it was a pretty tame stay with some blogging in the afternoon, a visit to the church and some singing and some guitar practice and talking with my Swedish roommate.

me and anita, my roommate

And then we had a communal dinner; there were just six of us at the dinner table, and I offered to share some songs afterwards. So I played some of my pilgrim songs and taught a song called ‘Oh, sweet light’ to the Pilgrims sitting at the table, who were from China, and Spain and France and the Netherlands and Germany. then another pilgrim played us a classical piece on the piano, which was located three floors up on the stairwell on the winding staircase, so we were all purchased above and below her on the staircase as she played. When she finished, I noticed a pilgrim listening from the top floor, leaning over the railing. And I looked up to him and I said: “Do you sing?” and he said yes.

Heading into Vienna, walking behind a woman from Los Angeles

And I said, will you sing us something? So he pulled up the words, once he got some Wi Fi, and sang an incredible Spanish aria, echoing through the entire house with amazing reverberation and became one of those raucous, spontaneous pilgrim moments where people from all over the world come together for a brief moment to share in laughter and stories. To top it off, I didn't notice till about halfway through that the man that was singing was only in his underwear and didn't even seem to be in the least bit self conscious about it as he belted out this aria with many of us videoing him.

I also spent some time with my Swedish roommate, Anita, who lives in MariaFred, the place outside of Stockholm, where a number of years ago I went and taught a songwriting workshop in a men’s prison with my friends Lisen from Stockholm and Mette from Denmark, so that was an amazing small coincidence. And then the other amazing thing about Anita is that I had met two American woman two days before that had told me I needed to meet a Swedish woman named Anita, because she had spent spent eight months living all around the world in people's homes and writing a book about the meaning of home and the meaning of place that she then self-published in English, called “homelife around the world.”. And then it turned out we were placed in the same room together, and it was just her and I in this large hostel room. So we had some really nice time to visit together and talked about about our shared interests in questions of belonging and place, and home and she's particularly interested in architecture. Just so she seeks out these really beautiful places on the Camino that have architectural interest for her. And so she stays in some really, really cool Albergues. Some of them are just single rooms, so they're a little pricier but exquisite. Like one Rabanal del Camino, which is apparently run by an American writer, who leads writing retreats and is a life coach. And lives on the Camino in something called the “stone boat guesthouse.” (You can hear I'm climbing up a hill right now. I had been warned that this section into Viana is quite hilly. Very up and down. And it is). It's a great workout. I'm feeling pretty strong. Pretty good. I think I might start expanding the distance as I'm walking because I'm feeling ready. I like to start slow, especially to prevent injuries and lots of painful blisters and then work my way up so it feels great. Getting stronger! 

Now i am in Viana, where I just attended a music, wine, and gastronomy festival, so sharing a few photos from that.

Over and out and talk to you tomorrow, from Logroño!

a rockin’ lead singer, and lead guitarist from Cádiz, Spain who played at today’s festival,

disclaimer: All posts written on the camino are written from my cell phone from transcriptions of a recording, and therefore have very minimal editing. They are meant to be a snapshot/soundscapeand a representation of daily life while walking, rather than a polished publication. Please take that into account when reading.*

#Camino #CaminodeSantiago #SongwriterontheCamino #Singer songwriter #Singmebackhomeretreats #SongsofSantiago #Ethnographic  #AnthropologistInSpain #AnthropologyOnTheCamino #3MilesAnHour #estella #Navarra #Rueda #cantautora #losarcos #casatiago #alberguedelaabuela #sansol #palacio.de.sansol #viana #albergueizar

lentejas I had for lunch just before heading across the street to the Catholic mass