Our Sabbatical Life

During our second two-month stay in Montreal last fall, Will and I enjoyed  visiting two of Quebec Eastern Township villages identified by Louise Penny as part of her inspiration for her Inspector Armand Gamache series, set in quaint and adorable (and extraordinarily murderous...) fictional town of Three Pines, Quebec.  As Will and I are also people who took the obligatory photo of the "Three Pines" Welcome sign--and, yes, drove to visit these towns expressly for the purpose of visiting the Three Pines inspirations--we are reminded of the ways in which part of our recent travels have mixed overall pleasure in visiting beautiful locales with the more specific thrill of actually being places mentioned in some of our favorite international murder mystery series. We are all familiar with the term "food porn." Those pictures of luxuriously appointed kitchens or extravagantly beautiful dishes of drool-worthy food are everywhere these days--and all making us swoo...

So, you want to walk to Santiago de Compostela, huh? Having curated this blog since its creation a bit more than a year ago, I know that Will's packing list for last spring's coast-to-coast bike ride is one that people have stumbled upon and returned to.  Clearly, there are readers out there--beyond our circle of friends and family, and outside the U.S.!--who are looking for some pointers for an undertaking such as a cross-country roughing-it ride. Since our camino walk was 5 years ago, we have less-detailed instructions on what to bring and how to pack.  However, we do still have some ideas that we want to share here. Clothes for walking: 2 pairs of convertible pants/shorts (or, for women, possibly pants/capris) 2-3 short sleeved fast-drying shirts . 1 long sleeve fast-drying shirt and/or 1 collared shirt that could double for both walking (sun protection!) and for dressing up. 2-3 pairs of wool hiking socks , with plenty of cushion (to start). 2-...

I have a childhood memory involving my grandmother's outhouse in a South Korean fishing village that has morphed into an irrational fear that won't go away. In my nightmare vision, I fall inside the narrow rectangle that had been cut out as a make-shift squat toilet, and I flail around in the repulsive mess.  Yes, I had quite an unpleasant  deja vu when I saw Slumdog Millionaire . Given this phobia, I have more serious qualms about "rough" travel than Will does.  Besides which, men have it a little easier when it comes to using porta-potties and outhouses during their excursions.  Typically, they just need to urinate, and men can do that without touching any surface that might be a bit iffy.  Not having that luxury, women suffer much greater agonies when contemplating the relative cleanliness of bathrooms they might come across. During our Camino de Santiago walk, we had occasion to try out a myriad different bathrooms.  After all, cafe bars along ...

A couple of years ago I was enjoying a potluck dinner with six other ladies when someone asked about my camino experience.  Many were understandably horrified at the idea of sleeping in cramped quarters with numerous other people, and the suggestion of communal unisex toilets and showers turned off the rest of the listeners who were still contemplating a brief portion of the walk. One of the women then asked: "What did you do for food?"  I have more I can say on the subject of northern Spanish cuisine--another time--but let me say something now about snacking along the Camino de Santiago. *  *  *  *  *   Our days began with the typical Spanish breakfast: cafe con leche  and toast (sometimes just a slice of untoasted bread).  Hardly enough to sustain weary pilgrims on grueling days of 15+ miles of walking.  So, within an hour of starting off from our various albergue hostels, most of us were on the lookout for a place to l...

Will and I realized that sound and restful sleep might be in short supply on our very first night at an albergue (think: hostel) along the camino.  At the top of this post is a picture of a "typical" albergue that walkers stayed in. We initially had a pleasant afternoon conversing with the other English-speakers, and I even tried my bit of French with an older gentleman whose English vocabulary was even less plentiful than my French.  Despite the fact that it was painfully clear that I was reverting to "The pencil of my uncle is yellow"-type of first-semester grammar book sentence constructions, it turned out that I was the one in the albergue  who most closely approximated a conversation partner for this poor man who had been logging outrageous number of miles each day in solitude and desperate for some human speech.  We sat for a long time, each patiently struggling to understand what the other was attempting to communicate, and all in all it was a promisin...

Our last post, "Remembering the Camino de Santiago, Part 1: Introduction," might make someone eager to lace up some hiking boots.  But, here's fair warning that you might soon want to ditch those boots in frustration.  In coastal areas west of Santiago Cathedral (for instance, if you go on to Finisterre or Muxia), you are likely to see a sight like the above: abandoned hiking boots.  If you do walk the camino, you'll likely understand why. *  *  *  *  *  When Will and I have the opportunity to encourage future camino participants, we are wildly enthusiastic.  But it's possible that we are operating with a slight bout of amnesia about the experience, perhaps because walkers are filled with unadulterated bliss ONCE they have completed the camino.  During the walk itself, emotions are a bit more complicated... While I wouldn't trade those 34 days (33 walking, and 1 day resting) of my life, I have to admit that there were moments ...

During Will's last (work-funded) sabbatical, in May and June of 2013, we walked the Camino de Santiago de Compostela along the northern border and coast of Spain.  (It's hard to believe that we're nearing the 5-year anniversary of such an important milestone in our lives!)  In English, you might have heard of it as the Way of St. James, and the French name is  Chemin de St. Jacques . Will's recovery from a too-recent knee surgery meant that we started in Pamplona, Spain, instead of from St. Jean Pied-de-Port, France, but we did make it all the way to Santiago Cathedral where the remains of St. James are reportedly buried.  This trip is one of those "transformational" experiences, and something we think back to fondly, ALL THE TIME. I was really perfectly OK with walking only 448 miles of this journey instead of the entire 490 miles covered by the most popular route, Camino Frances.  On the other hand, Will is an exercise fiend, and it bothers him ...