[Gocamino] flamenco

[Mr Charles Rush]

Dear all--Spain!  I got so. . .homesick, if that is a feeling an American of Irish descent can apply to northern Spain, then I got so. . .homesick.  I miss, not the Spain of flamenco, which I have never experienced, but the Espana of the small villages of the north, along the Camino, where the hardworking grandmere is herding the family cattle home along the village street at the end of the day.  The Espana of the northern cities and towns like Estella, more like our American eastern towns in spirit--except for the craziness of Pamplona during feria...mostly American drunken college students, I'm afraid.  The north is dur, as they say of Conques and Espalion and Le Puy on the Chemin in France.  I confuse French, Spanish and occitan, and sometimes end up speaking all three plus English in one sentence.  Flamenco has nothing to do with the north, the north is dur.

Patricia