Santiago

We haven't done the final calculations, but even taking into account some "leap frogging" due to weather or injuries, we walked more than 400 miles in 5 weeks, essentially across northern Spain.
This morning we tried to sleep in but couldn't. So we looked for a coffee shop that had interested us last night, and we were 15 minutes early. We decided to wait out the time in the Cathedral, and who did we spy there but Emily, a 20-something woman from Pittsburgh whom we have been with off and on for much of the trip. We thought we would miss her so this was a wonderful surprise. She was on her way, walking to Finisterre, and we convinced her to have coffee with us. (Photo 1) We chose a delightful cafe that has been in existence since 1897.
Then we ran some errands and went back to the Cathedral to attend the noon mass for pilgrims. On our way, Michele shot this photo of me (2) with one of the many mimes that work the large plaza in front of the church. The mass was well attended, with many people standing, but they didn't have any of the pomp and circumstance (or incense) from last night. I'm so glad we had not missed that.
After mass we finally snagged a photo of the two of us in front of the Cathedral. (3) We had been so busy hugging everyone yesterday that we had not done it. This shows how massive the Cathedral is and how weathered. No sand blasting here.
After mass we continued to see people we had walked with off and on during the last few weeks.
Then we went to lunch in the garden courtyard of a hotel with friends Brent from Barcelona (formerly California), Mike from Florida, Mike from Tahoe, Rene from Reno, and another woman from Nashville. Turns out the woman from Nashville and I knew a lot of the same people since I had lived there 4 years. Continues to be a small world.
This evening we went to dinner again with our Dutch friends Perry, Gerrie, and Sabina at the same place we had breakfast. Dinner was equally delightful and I had the paella as did others. We walked them back to their hotel and said some tearful goodbyes. On the way we ran into some other friends and had our photo taken with the girls.(4, L to R: Sabina, Gerrie, me, Angelica, Michele) Our friends told us about their trip to Finisterre today, our destination for tomorrow -- the place that was once the "end of the known world" before Christopher Columbus and others.