Chapter 51: Beginning the Camino de Santiago

Chapter 51: Beginning the Camino de Santiago

Tutorials ended and we began to plan our summers before returning to the US for the fall semester. Most of the girls in the other house decided to go to Amsterdam. Micah and I planned to meet with Kyle, who was in Europe for a choir trip, and walk a portion of the Camino de Santiago—a historical catholic pilgrimage along the northern coast of Spain. It was once a way for people to get declarations from the church to enter heaven, particularly those who were destitute or poor. Others could pay their way through.

The plan was for Micah and me to fly to Madrid and then take the train north to Leon, where we would meet up with Kyle and start our journey west toward Santiago. Micah and I got to Madrid without incident and check into our nearby hostel. After putting our stuff away, we head to a nearby Tapas bar for something to eat. Micah speaks fluent Spanish, and I speak essentially none, and my Japanese is of no obvious help. Micah talks to the bar tender. He keeps insisting that chicken is vegetarian (which I am at the time) and tries to give us a hefty serving along with several potato-based tapas. We have light Spanish beers with the food. The bar is loud and rowdy, and when we go and try to pay, Micah tells me that the bar-tender keeps telling him “No money, gift.” Micah eventually figures out how to tip several Euros to pay for our food and drinks. Back in the hostel we review the plan one more time regarding getting to Leon on meeting Kyle the next day.

We wake up, pack our bags, and then head over to the train station. Micah navigates and we board without issue. After sitting down, I choose this moment to go through my stuff and make sure I haven’t forgotten anything. The train starts moving. Micah starts to get worried as I increasingly and aggressively go through my baggage, at one point dumping nearly everything on the ground. I can’t find my passport. We don’t have phone service or another way to get into contact with Kyle. We decide Micah will continue and meet with Kyle, and I will go back and try to find my passport at the hostel where we thought I likely left it. Micah takes out a napkin and scribbles a few Spanish phrases on it that he thinks I may need. Things like, “I’m looking for my passport. One ticket to Madrid please. One ticket to Leon please.” We get to the first train stop and I get off. I utterly fail to pronounce the written phrases properly, and so I show the ticketer the napkin and point to needing a ticket to Madrid.

Back in Madrid I go to the Hostel and ask them if a passport turned up, or if I could look for it. Alas, there was nothing to be found. I start to panic. They let me use their computer. I print off a copy of my passport, and then email my parents who email me a copy of my birth certificate. I print and place all the documents in my laptop folder. I also reluctantly email Greg because he is technically in charge of the trip. Outside I wander the streets near the hostel. I go to the tapas bar—they haven’t seen a passport. I continue to wander north, looking for the US embassy. I didn’t initially find the embassy, but I did find something better: Taco Bell. It was a beautiful Taco Bell with vibrant and colorful interior design, and several characteristic “Taco Bell Art” pieces that donned the walls and appeared unique. The menu was gloriously backlit. I used my best Spanish and ordered a Crunchwrap Supreme and Mexican pizza. It tasted like a U.S. Taco Bell that actually followed health codes—it seemed my spiritual experience would start early even though I was not with Micah and Kyle.

I begin wandering the streets again, attempting to stay close to the hostel. Eventually a woman in relatively tight-fitting clothing on the corner of the street stops me. She asks if I’m lost and if I’m looking for something. I tell her that yes, I was lost, and that I was looking for the U.S. Embassy. She seemed kind and trustworthy and told me that she would take me to the embassy and to follow her. I follow and within a couple blocks we’re at the embassy. There are two lines, one for U.S. citizens, and a much longer one for non-U.S. citizens. I thank her for her help. She responds, “You want sex now?” I tell her that’s very kind but no. She hands me a business card. I hadn’t met an escort with a business card before, and I wondered if I should be worried taking this card right in front of the armed U.S. officer nearby.

The embassy is relatively chaotic with families and disappointed looking people who I suspect were denied whatever they were after. I start to worry. I’m called up quickly and tell them my passport was lost or stolen. They ask me about documents I have with me and assure me that I do have the correct ones to get an emergency passport. I’m given a couple forms to fill-out, documenting a lost or stolen passport and then the application for an emergency passport. I fill everything out and hand it back to the woman at the desk. The replacement passport is $170. She tells me I can convert it to a normal passport back in the U.S. free of charge. I’m told to wait a few hours and that they’ll get me when the passport is ready.

While I wait, I take out my laptop and use the wifi to reach out to Micah and Kyle to update them on the situation. I find a night train to Leon that would leave later that evening. I could be in Leon by morning, and then take a taxi to go the 20km and meet up with them. Micah tells me they had been filling out an extra “passport”—a little envelope that you fill with stamps to prove you walked the entire final 100km of the Camino—so that I wouldn’t be behind. Good friends, helping to cheat me into heaven.

I see there’s a new email from Greg. I read it quickly—it is aggressive, blameful, and paternalistic. He told me that I should find the nearest airport and fly back to the U.S. as soon as possible (and not even bother gathering my stuff still in Oxford), and that it was irresponsible to lose my passport. He then continued to say that the emergency passport wouldn’t work for getting back into the U.S. and that I would need a chaperone. It was insulting and none of it turned out to be true. I saved the email for when we eventually complied a class letter to the school discussing why Greg was not qualified to run the program.

My passport is finished. The woman at the desk tells me to keep it in my front pocket or somewhere safe and that they have a lot of people who get passports stolen in tapas bars. I thank her and head on my way back to the hostel, collect my stuff, then go to the train station.

There are no issues getting onto the train. I’m assigned the upper bunk of four in a sleeper car. The three other members of my car had been traveling together and spoke enthusiastically in English. I hear one say, “It’s too bad we can’t talk to the other guy since he’s German.” I was wearing black socks, sandals, and khaki shorts and they assumed that meant I must be German. At first, I don’t say anything because I was tired and wanted to rest. However, later I would join them in the dining car for some snacks and conversation. They were from England and were working their way up to the northern coast of Spain to do some sight-seeing.

I go to sleep for a while, but hours later I wake. The train feels strange, like it is going the wrong cardinal direction (we should be going north and a tad west). I went to the dining car again. An employee informs me that the train missed a track change and that we needed to go back to fix it. We would be a couple hours late to Leon. This turned out to be a great benefit. The train company offered full refunds for travel if the train was three or more hours late, and so my trip turned out to be free.

In Leon I connect with Kyle and Micah over text. I tell them I had made it and they told me where to taxi. I flag down a taxi and within 15 minutes I’m pulling up close to Kyle and Micah. We exchange big hugs. I’m so happy to be reunited and it’s good to see Kyle again. Micah tells me he was worried I wouldn’t make it. I tell him that’s a fair worry, and about what had happened. Kyle tells us about his choir trip which was overall good but filled with a lot of drama. He then tells us that if he were to do it again, he would have come to Oxford. So, like good friends we bring up how he didn’t go to Oxford with us all the time.

They hand me my Camino passport and a shell (symbol of the Camino). I attach the shell to my backpack, and we start walking. The thing I like most about being with both Kyle and Micah is that it is always interesting when you’re with them. They are always thinking of new ideas and talking about new things they’ve learned, and each bring unique perspectives that make it feel as though I’m joining a panel discussion. Micah and I summarize our oxford experience. I tell Kyle that I had wished he’d come as well instead of his choir trip. Kyle might be on of the easiest people to grow with, and so I cannot imagine the things I would have learned had Kyle joined us. Micah jokes that because of him and Kyle filling out the passport for me, they were helping me cheat my way into heaven. I was neither pure nor pious, and so this was par for the course. And so, we started our journey together. We would not turn out to be especially good pilgrims because wine and beer were cheap in Spain. But more on that later.