The moment has gone!

Christmas Eve:

Had to cheat a little this morning. Up at six and leaving the Casa Parroquial at seven I spent half an hour trying to find a place to have breakfast before walking to Salamanca, but I failed. Crossing over the river Tormes I thought there maybe an option there, but no there wasn't so I began to feel it best to stick out my thumb and go another way to Salamanca?

Here I am. Just gone eight and it always amazes me just how direct, far and fast it's possible to go via the internal combustion engine! And how the city shines in the morning sun.

The fellow who picked me up was delivering some Jamón to the Central Mercado and so now I'm here. On the way, in my very broken Spanish and his broken French, we discussed some things: his jamón business, the fact he knows the US but not the UK and I asked him about Christmas Eve and when the shops etc shut. It appears that by 1pm that's it! It's a bloody good job I didn't walk... I'd have arrived to a possible ghost town and without any means of connecting to the bed I need for two nights? I'm in the huge Plaza Mayor and have breakfast. The office of tourism is in the same piazza and opens shortly. I've just found the website for the Via del la Plata and there is an Albergue here, but the rules are consistent with all Albergue: you have to be gone the morning after your night's rest. Perhaps this rule can be broken at this time of year: just as it was in Ávila?

***

A perfect end to the perfect year of Camino and other routes. Can I recall all of the places I've put my head? This could be some task: they all merge into one. But currently I'm crossing the Roman Bridge over the Tormes which is clearly in flood: and I experienced the weather that brought this torrent down from the Sierra in the south: Sistema Central. All the money I had in my pocket I've given to a homeless guy who said Buen Camino when I said Peregrino: I've a bed fora night with the other Peregrinos, who happen to be passing through here for whichever reason, but that's later.

***

Bizarre experience. Totally not what I needed last night! And now I feel I must flee from the Albergue de Peregrinos in Salamanca because there are a couple of strange French people who generally don't know why they are in the Albergue. I think I should head away from Salamanca on the next train? If they run on Navidad?

No sleep really at all: there was a food and drink orientated Christmas Eve lunch which I came into with Salchichón, Jamón and Manchego and hung about for a little time. They were all speaking in a French Spanish compound language which I really couldn't follow. I popped back outside to see what was happening around the Cathedral and returned to the Albergue and headed to bed.

After a couple of hours the rest of the Peregrinos turned in, but they were loud and I was brought out of sleep. So I went and got some fresh water as I was feeling a little dehydrated ... again ... Downstairs the younger French man(boy) was walking around or something which I was at a loss to understand what and then throughout the night whatever he was doing downstairs I could hear and everytime I went to pee, and refill the flask, he was still downstairs walking around. At one point I am sure he had surgical gloves on, but I couldn't make out what he was doing. Occasionally he would enter the room speak a name - I guess the elder French man's name - and then leave again. Literally I was beginning to get unhinged and wasn't feeling well either.

Christmas Day:

In the morning I was told I'd have to be out of the Albergue from around 9 until 4 but my body couldn't have taken walking around a deathy quiet centre for seven hours. The two French men didn't have any clear goal in mind so weren't walking until at least Boxing Day and I got a strange vibe from the Younger one so decided I'd better head to Madrid: only a day early. The train left at 9:45 and passed back through Ávila and a couple of smaller towns before reaching the estación norte around 12:30.

For the first time I was suffering some slight motion sickness on a train: obviously I was feeling the effects of the previous evening and early morning shenanigans, so I head to the WC frequently to throw up and break out in cold sweats!

By the time we hit a sunny Madrid, where there were a lot of folks parading around the royal palace and Plaza Mayor, all I wanted was peace and quiet away from everyone and everything in Madrid so I found the closest hostel and hid away from 1:30 until 4:30 when I went for some uninspiring Chinese take out. At six pm on Christmas Day I'm still hidden away in room 49. Tomorrow is another day and it's time to turn in again until Boxing Day.