U2 and the Camino begins

7pm flight to dublin Thursday night- 7/23rd
7am arrival in dublin--friday morning

Lunch with Shane (former MS) and Cathil at Town Grill, and friends ritchie and nancy join us too. In no uncertain terms we laugh very hard throughout lunch as Irish humor rules the day. Matty gets his first sight of what it is like to truly tell stories as Cathil gets into the Irish storytelling mode. ("Tonto Murphy").

5pm-o'donoghue's pub for first pint of guiness--Danny and larry catch up with us there!!Last pint of guiness consumed around 4am.

In between we head over to Crote Park and await U2-- they come on around 8:45pm on what turned out to be a glorious, sun-filled night in Dublin. The sky directly behind the band never darkened the entire night.

The stage arrangement was unique, large and visually very impessive-entertainment at its best with some great music alongside a host of their new songs (One, Beautiful Day, With or Without You, Matt's FIRST Day in Ireland in his life and he get's to hear "Sunday Bloody Sunday" !!!, City of Blinding lights). The seats were great, but it was a massive affair with all of 80k people.

Then it was cab to the bar at the La Stampa hotel where matty went to ricthie/nancy's room and crashed for a few hours--

I went with the crowd to the next place (it's now about 2am)-- some row house that opens up into this giant mutilevel outside club (Krystal?) where we had a great time with Shane, Dan S, Nicholas and friends (ritchie and nancy still going strong!!). --cab back to pick matty up at 4am and back to shane's to get our backpacks (we left our raincoats on his couch so we guarantee ourselves sunshine) to the airport for the 6am Ryannair flight to madrid.

Ryannair cattle car lifts off and touches down like clockwork. But, to be fair, I've never slept better on a plane then I did on this flight-no wonder as it is now Saturday at 6am and I haven't slept since Friday around this time.

Arrive madrid 8:30am and cab to train station for 11am fast train, but it is full, so we take the 11:30am regular and arrive in Leon, Spain at 4pm--
Hostal Guzman at 4:45 pm (walked there from the train station with backpacks for the very first True camino steps on this trip!!!

Had a nap and will now have some dinner and take in a saturday night of watching families stroll in spain in the lovely Cathedral Square in Leon.

A lovely sight

Tt

Sunday, Domingo, July 26th-

Our first day of walking, and it is beautiful. We commence in San Martin toward Astorga for Day 1- We walk through Hospital del Orbigo and Matt is truly appreciating the ancient bridge at Hospital and the legend of Don Quixote that lives here. We lunch in Hospital and I am remembering the last time I was on this walk like it was yesterday. I tell Matt as we approach Santibanez that this is the town where I saw the only full court basketball court on my trip, and sure enough there it is (grass needs some mowing, but its not b-ball season, is it). We get ready for the next 4 hours of walking with a water refill as it is about 90 degrees of HOT on the trail. I am watching Matt walk ahead as he's 16 in great shape and is on cruise control taking a few pictures here and there. Only dy 1 but I sense he gets how special this walk is and its not complicated between us. Not much talking, one foot in front of the other, and the weight of the backpacks is starting to wear coupled with the beaming sun and the hardpacked dirt and gravel trail.

We meet two couples from Maijorca, Spain who are also on their first day of walking, and we are both in awe of the "mucho calor" that we are struggling with on this afternoon. Where are the rest of the walkers, the pilgrims? I tell matt is my guess is they know days like this are meant for early starts and finish as the afternoons are too hot, and now we know it too. The day rolls on longer and hotter and it is now 6:30 as we approach the cross outside of Astorga that I told matt about. From here you can see the city below but I let Matt know despite the looks its still 6k away.

That rest at the cross costs me as my back tightens up severely and we've reached the end of day 1 by 7pm and stop in a hostal 3k from Astorga and call it a day. My back refreshes and we find a ham sandwich for dinner in the local bar as the many restaurants of Astorga go beggin tonight and we choose the convenience of the local bar.

Day one thoughts--- I can't believe how tall Matt has become over this last year. He has caught up to me in all ways and during this walk it appeared that he truly enjoyed the adventure and was disappointed we didn't get to meet more people along the way.

Music? No ipods, but we did discuss a song with the phrase "on top of the world"-- I'm humming it but Matt doesn't know it so we get nowhere with that one.

The descriptive part is over, the mystical part is yet to come.

Hoping my back is fully recovered in the morning and were ready for another 25km.

Tt
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