[Gocamino] Last call.

[Blaroli at aol.com]

Hello you all,
I´ll be going home to New York on Saturday morning, and still have some time to get, or do, whatever I may for any of you.
So far, I´ve gotten ten each of those laminated little books and a bunch of CDRoms.
If you have any suggestions about additional pieces of information that may be incorporated in the reported pilgrims´´ data please let me know and I´ll pass them on.

There is a big fuss in the newspapers and TV about the threatened separation of the Basque country (Pamplona, Roncesvalles, etc.,) into a separate and independent country. Apparently this is the closest that the separatists have come to doing it.
A new law was passed in Cataluña (Barcelona, etc.) that makes it obligatory for all those there to learn Catalan, which is a language quite close to that intriguing Euskadi that they speak in the Basque (Navarrese) area.  I read somewhere that Euskadi is the oldest language in Europe..... it certainly sounds it: guttural and grunty... yet pleasing when sung.
There´s another fuss on the part of parents and teachers in Spain complaining about that fact that under the new government the ratio of teachers to students has increased from 10 to 11... Good grief.
The US News and World Report mentioned Colby College in New York as being the only college in the state with such ratio.  It is also, I think, the most expensive:  $34,000. per year plus room and board.
(I´d rather not comment).
Oh, the dollar has fallen again.

It is raining cats and dogs here, and Santiago has never been  lovelier.  I´d be hard put to think of a more beautiful place, in the whole world, than Obradoiro, Azabacherias, Platerias and Quintana at night, in the rain.
Wheras the New Year´s multitudes were memorable,.... in the rain.... in the night, with no one around, it seems that the souls of millions and millions of past pilgrims congragate again around the Cathedral, whispering quietly, in the rainy midnight-pink.  And it seems that the very stones come alive and join the soul community of pilgrims.

I had heard of pink midnights.... but I had never really seen one, and certainly not reflected on the wet stones and monuments all around..... It was glorious!

The post office gave me (for free) a whole bunch of beautiful commemorative postcards; when I get home I´ll send them to those of you who may want them.

It is a pity to have to leave. I should like to stay here forever. But my little dog Christopher is getting impatient. He is named after Christopher of the "Sopranos", and although he is just a five-pound Maltese I wouldn´t want to incurr his displeasure.  I know that when I get home he´ll fuss over me for five minutes or so and then he´ll go back to his self-appointed charge of protecting a 20-stories building in the heart of Manhattan.

Lastly, the book tht accompanies the Coelho DVD is wonderful. I think that it was produced by the Xunta because it covers all the different routes.  It is a very large book. Coelho (it means "rabbit" in Portuguese) participated on the DVD at their request and without compensation.  The DVD is about two hours long, it has lovely views of the French Camino and Coehlos´commentaries, in Spanish, which are both simple and illuminating, and surprisingly unassuming, considering that e Coelho has sold more than fifty million books.

Big hug!

Rosina