I am looking forward to it. Flat plains mean huge skies. ‘Like a bowl’
They forecast rain tomorrow which means I can dig out the rain cape Tiffany lent me from it’s home at the very bottom of my bag.
What has it been like so far?
Like nothing else I have ever done. It is very satisfying to walk in one direction, especially when that direction is west. The yellow signs are sometimes arrows and sometimes scallop shells and they are always there, leading you in the right direction. I imagine the people who created them like angels or guides who know the way and want to share this with us. In what other part of life do we receive this much help?
Along the way there are cafés and hostels, again as if by magic they provide us with food and a home for the night. All I need to do is walk. I can amuse myself as I wish, chatting or meditating, munching snacks, singing, listening to music, staring blankly at the path, or letting thoughts float through me.
I haven’t experienced a miracle, nor had great insights into my life but I feel lighter and happier here, just eating sleeping and walking and carrying my own things. Life is simpler and while it is not easy walking every day, it is much easier than life off the camino.
Here I know what my task is.
Someone said to me that when we prepare to walk the Camino we also pack our fears.
What fears did I pack?
I brought my Kindle to avoid times alone at night feeling awkward or lonely. It has never been used. I brought 3 inhalers and have hardly used one. But apart from that, the fears I felt before setting off have melted away with each step.
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to move abroad?
This is one in a series of interviews with people who came from other countries to live here in Catalunya. I asked the same questions that people often ask me, to see what different stories emerge. You can read them here over the next weeks.
it is worth it
Gabriela’s Story
Please tell us a bit about yourself.
Before moving to Spain I lived almost three years in Cracow, Poland. During this period I met my boyfriend. As you probably guessed I gave up my career and moved to Catalonia because of him. 🙂 I love to travel, take photos and meet new people. I like tea, but I never drink coffee. And I´m in love with chocolate and cakes (and good food in general). 😀
How long have you lived here?
I moved to Catalonia in June 2014.
Are you working here and if yes, what do you do?
No, unfortunately I´m still searching for a job. I study Catalan twice a week.
Three favourite things about living here?
My boyfriend, great food, the most wonderful places I have ever seen.
Three things you don’t like about living in Catalunya?
It is hard to get a job here. Although I have several experiences usually I do not even get the opportunity to go for a job interview. For me, this is very frustrating. On the other hand, I can´t remember anything else that I wouldn´t like here. The people are friendly (even the drivers are very polite). 😀
What do you miss most about your ‘home’ country?
I definitely miss my family and my friends. And sometimes (when I feel homesick) I miss my hometown as well. You know, places I know from my childhood.
Three things you have learned about yourself or life since living here?
Uff! That´s a hard one. Before moving abroad I never thought that I will be able to survive in a foreign country totally alone (without my family). Although at the beginning I had some problems in Poland, I was able to solve everything. Moving to Catalonia I had some problems as well (for example how will I get a NIE), but I already knew that I can achieve everything what I want. I think I´m much more open than I was 5 years ago. Living abroad you will realize that you need friends more than ever; a basis that gives you strength and energy to go further (even when you think you will give up and move back to your home country).
What language(s) do you speak in your daily life here?
I use English and Catalan with my boyfriend, my friends, in school. I still use Hungarian when I´m talking with my family and I use Slovak when I´m talking with my friends from Cracow.
Do you plan to return to your native country and in what circumstances would you definitely want to go back?
I don´t plan to move back to Slovakia.
What advice would you give to someone thinking of moving to this country?
Be wise and study all the law you will need in Spain (NIE, health insurance, etc). And never give up! 🙂
This is the first in a series of interviews which I will be posting over the next few weeks while I am walking the Camino. When possible I will also send short updates from my phone on how the walk is going.
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Are there any other questions you would ask someone about their life after moving to an new country? Let us know in the comments and we will try to get some answers in a follow up post.
It is a wet Wednesday evening and I am sitting wrapped in a blanket beside a log fire, wondering why on earth I decided to walk the Camino at this time of year. If it is cold and wet here then imagine how it will be up on the Atlantic side of the peninsula. There is still snow near Roncesvalles where we hope to start.
La route est dure mais je suis forte. Mon âme est sûre, la peur est morte. Je sais quoi faire avec la vie Quand toute la terre sera affranchie.
Reasons behind it
For years I have wanted to do it. I wanted to have time – a lot of time – to think and to review my life so far. I like walking and I always find that the action of putting one foot in front of the other, shifting weight from right leg to left, letting my hips loosen in their sockets, with my arms swinging by my side, this movement when repeated over and over again in a natural landscape can bring a kind of clarity in mind and spirit that is difficult to find in other ways.
I’ve read Shirley Maclaine’s book about the Camino and heard other people talk about transformations in their lives after walking it. I’ve seen the film, The Way and although this wasn’t a true representation of what it would be like, it made the idea more real.
When Bonnie was alive I looked into walking the Camino with a dog but soon realised that it would be hard – for her and for me. Many hostels don’t accept dogs and after reading Spanish Steps by Tim Moore it seems that a donkey would be more welcome along the way.
One day I will have another dog and as I can’t imagine going for a 5 week walk and leaving him behind, now is the time.
I also want to go somewhere I can practise Spanish.
Preparing
The period before setting off on the Camino is quite powerful. Remember this is not just a very long walk – it is a pilgrimage and whether you see yourself as religious or spiritual or not, something internal starts shifting, well before you set a foot on the road. There are all the preparations of backpacks and clothes and boots and sleeping bags and for a while my mind was only focused on questions like ‘should I take a raincoat or a cape?’ No room for indecision – you can’t throw everything in ‘just in case’. Everything you take you will carry and so my fuzzy brain has had to be honed to a sharp incisive decision-making tool. This process alone has deeply unsettled me.
I gaily invited other friends to join me along the way but I was also confident that time alone would be good. I like walking alone – or preferably with a dog. Two people have had to drop out and I now have a journey which starts in company – the first week with Pep and another friend, the second week with my sister Caroline. Then, there is a huge expanse of time and space that either I will walk through by myself or I will chicken out and go back home before I finish.
‘Don’t look at the map!’
The scale of it is terrifying. From Roncesvalles to Santiago de Compostella is 759 kilometers or 472 miles.
It doesn’t matter how often I repeat
1. It will be fine. It will be more than that – it will be beautiful.
2. There are always other people around to help
3. I can stop if I want to and return another year to finish it with a friend
There is an undeniable knot of fear in my stomach almost all the time now and I have to skirt around it in order to continue preparing my bag. I don’t want other people to reassure me. I know it is normal to feel like this and probably centuries of pilgrims have felt the same way. However most of them with better reason – there were bandits, wild dogs and wolves; they didn’t have extra-light sleeping bags or technical quick-dry trousers and iphones.
All I can think is that these people had faith and I am standing on the very edge of a great abyss. It is right in my centre where my faith should be. My faith in myself.
I can fly – I hope!
So I suppose this is why I want to walk the Camino.
I am tired of being too frightened to live fully, tired of how often I avoid something scary rather than face it, tired of a constant niggling fear that what could go wrong, will. So I am throwing myself on the mercies of the Camino and hoping that I will emerge stronger and able to trust myself and Life more.
That is the terrified pilgrim that I am.
There is another pilgrim inside me too.
She is looking forward to getting out there and seeing what happens next. She is not so vocal as terrified pilgrim but she is there and she is the one who has got me to this moment, a few days before setting off. She has packed my bag, researched the route, gone out on training walks. I am so glad that she is coming too and I think I can trust her to take it all in her stride.
The most important steps for me will be those first ones I take when I am alone. If I stop before I reach Santiago de Compostela then that is fine, I only need to face this fear of walking by myself, carrying my own pack, making my own decisions and finding my own way.
Have you ever felt scared to do something but done it anyway? What helped you to face the terror and was it worth it in the end?
I will be away from my computer for the next few weeks but still in contact by phone. I hope to send photos and updates along the way. Meanwhile my interviews with people who made the decision to move to Catalunya will be posting here each week.
If you want to know how it all goes….join me on the Facebook Page or sign up to receive posts straight into your inbox.
Buen Camino!
Jumping bird Photo credit: Andysam / Foter / CC BY Romanic bridge Photo credit: alepheli / Foter / CC BY-SA
You don’t need to go anywhere so long as you are totally present where you are. Being here is so much
Rilke
Being here is so much
Living in another country is a strange experience. It gives and it takes away.
There is always a balance between what is wonderful here and what I am missing over there.
Some days this bothers me a lot, and other days it doesn’t.
I try to imagine how I would feel if I had never left home….the security, the familiarity, the sense of deep roots connecting me and holding me fast.
All I know is that somehow this experience of being ‘somewhere ever so slightly alien’ makes me feel awake, even when sometimes I would rather be sleeping.
This evening, walking at dusk through the natural reserve at the Aiguamolls, worrying slightly that we might not reach the car-park before dark, the colours of the sunset made me stop thinking for a long moment. Suddenly here too it felt like home – ‘planet earth’ home – ‘the amazingness of being alive’ home.
stairway to heaven
I don’t know where home is and I don’t even know what it means to be alive but in those moments when nature is outstandingly beautiful, dreamy, magical, I almost catch a sense of what it’s all about.
Just to let you know the almond blossom is out in the Catalan countryside!
Such a sign of hope and renewal.
I can feel it in my life too with new plans taking form. Every day, thoughts of the Camino, which we will start walking at the end of March, make me feel both excited and a bit scared. We are decorating the upstairs flat to have a space full of light and peace. Even the Resident Adolescent is changing into an easier person to live with, his offer to help me make pancakes last week was so totally out of the norm that I had to pinch myself to know I wasn’t dreaming.
