Though the labyrinth in the Chartres Cathedral was covered with chairs, I was able to walk an outdoor one at St. Kevin's Church in Glendalough, Ireland.
The above was in the Cathedral in Killarney, Ireland. I think we need its wisdom even more in the United States.
Watching a Real Madrid-FC Barcelona basketball game on television: this was as close as Luke got to going to a Real Madrid soccer game (and who knew they even had basketball teams?) Of the four things Luke said he wanted to do on our trip (zoo in Dublin, castle in Scotland, Eiffel Tower in France, and soccer game in Spain), he only got to go to the castle. He was a very good sport about it all.
The nicest hotel we stayed in on our trip--a Marriott--was on our first night in Madrid before we started the Camino. Luke and John both really enjoyed the hotel. John said that he was going to "opt out" of the 200 kilometer pilgrimage and that he would meet us in Madrid after we were done. But here he is going down the innovative escalator in the Madrid airport on the way to meet our pilgrimage group. So he, too, was a good sport.
Luke asked me what the thing on the right was for. I told him but he didn't like the answer. So then I said that if a person brought a dog to the hotel they could fill it up to give the dog a drink. He liked that answer better. :)
I haven't talked much about the food in Europe. Above and below are photos of two meals we had in Spain. Above are eggs and ham over fries. This was more to John's taste than the meal of trout and potatoes, which I liked. Because the Euro is stronger than the dollar, food was more expensive, particularly in Ireland and France.
Who knew there were snow-covered mountains so close to Madrid? Above are the Sierra de Guadarrama.
We had a few guided tours on our trip. I was always impressed by what good attention Luke paid. Here he listens to the guide talking about the home of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits.
This is one of the famously non-reactive Camino dogs. They've seen it all.
Luke had the opportunity to serve Mass. . .
. . . and to read at the churches in Spain.
This photo reminds me of a book that my grandparents gave me when I was a little girl, Chanticleer and the Fox. It is a tale based on the Canterbury Tales, which are about a pilgrimage.
Above is a bandaid on a church floor. To complete a pilgrimage, we need help for body and soul.
Luke and John enjoying the cafe life in Santiago de Compostela. It's nice to sit at a table outside, have a drink or snack, and watch the world go by for awhile.
This is the U.S. Customs area in the Dublin airport. On the way home, we actually went through Customs while we were still in Ireland. It was an interesting process. Also interesting and a little comical was when I got pulled out of the boarding line for a random security check.
On the flight from Dublin to Chicago, I watched two movies, both of which I really enjoyed. The first was Trumbo, about the blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter, Dalton Trumbo. It seems as if the same cycles get repeated again and again through history. But why I'm really mentioning the film is because something in it reminded me of our last night in Spain. We went to a little restaurant to have some pizza. A bullfight was on television. I had never seen a bullfight, and I was shocked. It should really be called bull killing. The bull lasts all of a half hour and dies a terrible death. There doesn't seem to be anything sporting about it. It was the only thing I didn't like about Spain. So in the movie that I'm watching the very next day, Trumbo is talking about an idea he has for a script. He and his wife had gone to a bullfight in Mexico. When the bull was killed, everyone in the stadium was cheering except he, his wife, and a little boy, who were all crying. Trumbo writes a screenplay, under an assumed name because he's blacklisted, called The Brave One, about a boy who tries to save his bull from being killed in a bullfight. The film wins an Academy award.
The other movie I watched was Brooklyn, which is set in the early 50s and is about a young Irish woman, Eilis, who immigrates to the United States. There is a scene in the movie of Eilis leaving for America. She is on a large ship waving good bye to her mother and her sister, neither of whom she is sure she will ever see again. Everyone on the boat is in the same situation. The people in the boat and on the dock are staring at each other with such sad longing. It's hard to imagine what such a situation must have felt like--someone dying, almost--and I thought about all of our Irish relatives who experienced such a good bye when they came to the United States.
Luke took this photo of the Chicago skyline.
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