Thursday 17 March updated 21 march

Happy St Patrick's Day!

We got up, made breakfast and at 7 I turned on the Gregorian chant music I brought. After everyone left we started cleaning. We finished by 10 am so we headed to one of the the two bars in town for cafe con leche and a croissant. We need to spread our little money around. When we came back I started a pot of red beans to have for the vegetarians. To celebrate St Patrick's day we decided to go to the other bar for a beer. As we were leaving we ran into a Brazilian pilgrim. His English and Spanish was limited but we got him headed up to the albergue, and we continued to the bar.  Seems all the old men are out about this time getting a drink and one buys us a round of vino tinto. We are making friends! We catch up with our emails and head back. The pilgrims start straggling in. We ultimately get 7 pilgrims. A nice comfortable number. One is a 72 year old Catalan. A real fireball and strong supporter of Catalan Independence. I got an earful of revisionist history, but she's a real sweetheart.

Pilgrims for today are:

Darlan from Brasil
Yung-Peo and Chie-May from Taiwan
Maria Rosa and Antonio from Spain
Martin from Austria
Marius fromLithuania

I decide to make pattas a la riojana for dinner. It's a real hit. Marina one of the Spanish Federation pilgrim coordinators drops by. She stayed for Mass, dinner and the pilgrim's benediction. Speaking of the benediction, I managed to trip and fall. For a minute I thought I had broken something, but I was alright.

Palma and I decide to go to the bar teo. All the old men are there so I buy them a round. Palma and I get a Sol ySombra. If I haven't mentioned this yet, booze and coffee is cheap here. For 6 glasses of wine and 2 Sol Y Sombras I paig 6 euros.  We end up getting 2 more S&S and start making a friend out of the owner. We spend about 15 minutes talking about wine. And he gives me another S&S. Time to go home and sleep.