Day 28: Madrid to Santander

Today feels like a huge step towards our Camino. We'll start walking tomorrow! I have some fears and some nerves but I have a lot of excitement and hope as well.

After arriving in Santander we took a bus to the city center. There we found a cafe and ate a patata tortilla with coffee and tea. We killed just enough time to walk with all our suitcases in tow to the cathedral. We had some prayer time and time to wander the grounds before 11am mass. The Holy Spirit was very present in mass.... in the form of pigeons... inside.... flying around and cooing. Mom thought it was hilarious. My favorite part was that the security guard/sacristan (she had handcuffs but also lit all the candles?) for the church was a bossy Spanish woman who was very insistent on keeping everyone in order in the church. The pigeons were no exception. Right before mass she was hissing at them and clapping her hands trying to get them whipped into shape.

The mass was in Spanish and very beautiful. The cathedral itself was also very simple but beautiful. It had a huge ornate golden altar piece as well as many beautiful side chapels.

After mass we still couldn't check into our Airbnb so we found a place for lunch. Lunch was so good. We got tomato salad... think midwestern summer tomatoes cut up with salt.... but then they flew to Italy to get dressed. So incredibly delicious.

We took a recommendation from the waitress to try to Pulpo... octopus legs. We were pleasantly surprised! It was not fishy at all and the texture wasn't too rubbery. The potatoes that came with it were also quite good! My first time trying octopus and moms first time enjoying it.

After lunch it was finally time to check into the Airbnb. Mom got the fun job of bringing the checked bag up the 4 flights of stairs. We spent some time resting and repacking and re evaluating the contents of our suitcase. Our hopes were to eliminate doubles and maybe cut down on weight..... below is the photo of what I decided to leave being because mom already had packed them. As you can see, my bag is so much lighter.

We were sick of packing so we took a walk to the beach. It was beautiful and we walked across many shells in all the sand and admired the wind surfers. We sat and read our guide book and decided we were going to keep that for the trip instead of relying on an app.... maybe we'll change our mind tomorrow.

After the beach we found a little pizzeria and ate a meal filled with carbs to fuel our tomorrow. I think I'm going to restart the count tomorrow! 28 days of traveling has been incredible and I'm excited for tomorrow to start as day 1 of something completely different.

I'm in bed now, maybe I'll download a couple audio books for the upcoming weeks, pray, and try to get a great nights sleep for our first walking day!

Prayer intentions:

-a good nights sleep

-that fears and anxieties make way for trust

-that my beginning of what seems to be a potential cough goes away and stays away

-that my minimal Spanish is enough to get us through the next 20 days with few issues.

-random one, but something I'm asking healing for is my hormonal condition PCOS. I'm especially worried about my hair loss, so if my hair could miraculously stop falling out... that would be rad.