Charades and Spanglish-aliano

I arrived in Astorga and it's so beautiful even with quite an overcast day with rain looming in the distance.  By the next morning, the weather doesn't allow my laundry to fully dry so I have to pin my socks to my backpack and let them dry in the wind while I walk the next leg.

Astorga has plenty to see and would be an ideal place to stay if I were able to allow myself to stay somewhere more than 24 hours.  How could I not love a place that was once a center for chocolate production? Aside from that, there are so many sites to see to include original Roman walls and foundations and the Bishop's Palace designed by Gaudi. Today may be a day where I wish I wasn't so tired, but after a couple of days of fairly athletic walking at a fast pace to take advantage of the flat roads, I can feel it all catching up to me.

During this next week's stretch, the terrain begins to climb and fall as we enter the mountains of Galicia. The views are expected to be breath taking, but not without a lot of hard work and probably my knee brace.  I think that may be my metaphor for life now that I think about it--aside from the knee brace part.

I can't believe how far I've come on my own...or how hard it is to not scratch these bug bites and aggravate them further.  Yes. I have become the unfortunate victim of bed bug bites due to the glamorous life of hostel living. Though I remember my friend Kate telling me about getting bed bug bites when she walked the Camino and how absolutely miserable she was, until she told herself that she could either be miserable and stay in all day or go out and enjoy what there is around her. That's exactly what she did, and what I did as well--after a stop to the pharmacy to obtain some kind of cream to help alleviate the itching.  (Imagine how asking for such a thing looks like without having the proper Spanish vocabulary and using wonderfully ridiculous hand motions). 

My Spanish skills are also improving and I now think that I speak some form of Spanglish-aliano that seems to get me by with the people I meet.  If I don't know a word in Spanish, I attempt it in Italian to see if that works, and if it doesn't then both I and the other person play a game of charades or try using similar words until we figure it out. It's an interesting way to pass the time...especially when for some reason you're trying to list Kevin Costner films or music groups.

I helped a Spanish friend with his English the other night and had to explain to him the difference in pronouncing "peaches" and "bitches" and that he in fact, had "sweet peaches" for dinner and well....not the other.