[Gocamino] Pilgrims

[Rosina]

Hello you all,
Reportedly, during the month of July the Pilgrims' Office awarded  41,632 Compostelas.
You can see all the details, in English, accompanied by some very nice graphic work, by going to:
http://peregrinossantiago.es/eng/post-peregrinacion/estadisticas/
How they got up the information so quickly I surely do not know, but they did.
Some friends just returned from Santiago and they say that the crowds are beyond belief and that they had to wait, on line, hours and hours to go through the Holy Door and/or to enter the Cathedral, and that going up to hug the Apostle's image or down to pray before the casket proved an impossibility.
Some New York City pilgrims and I will join the fray when the Pope visits the town on November 6th (there is no sensible explanation  for our going except that the occasion will be so very special). Archbishop Barrios has stated that all measures are being taken to insure that everyone who goes to Santiago on that day will get to see the Pope. I, myself, cannot imagine it. Let's face it, Santiago isn't Rome and the "Popemobile" can't maneuver up and down stairways and things to Azabacheria, Quintana, etc., or can it?
My friends also report that in Santiago the quality of the food and services are beginning to show the strain and that  people's tempers are often frayed.
Strange! In Seville a million visitors or more crowd the place during Holy Week, to the point that sometimes it can take 30 minutes  to advance a few meters in the street when a procession is going by. The place is absolutely chock-full and in many areas you simply cannot move, but, nevertheless, the food is always delicious and the services are dispensed with the wit, friendliness and near-risky jocularity that characterizes people from Andalucia.   And yet, often in the rest of Spain "andaluces" are spoken of as lackadaisical, unreliable and indolent.
Go figure!
Hugs.
Rosina