Off to Leon!

Two emendations to last post -- the prostitutes come from Eastern Europe and as you can see the city is Leon, not Leo. Also, I apologize for any duplicate posts -- I was having trouble with the keyboard and kept getting knocked off my blog -- so I sent thinking something went wrong. (Mel in my office knows I am famous for doing this on the Justice Center blog, but luckily usually only she and I see the duplicate posts!)

We missed our Sunday morning train to Leon due to the La Fiesta de La bicycleta -- like Bike to Work Day, but you and your kids bike in downtown Madrid. Streets are blocked off all morning which meant our taxi had to take a circuitous route and we were running to the train just as it pulled out. John heroically ran after it and even caught up, touched it, but it was too late. Fortunately, there was another train shortly after -- but it was a milk run that took 2.5 hours longer. Still it was lovely countryside and we did go through Avila, famous for St. Theresa, the great Church mystic and the only woman named a Doctor (scholar) of the Church.

We arrived to find ourselves in the middle of a fantastic Medieval Mercado -- with people dressed in costume -- very high quality artisan goods -- and wonderful foods -- lots of pork and sheep products -- very popular in Spain! It´s rather like a more sophisticated Renaissance Fair -- but a bit earlier in history. We started at the street by the Church of San Isidro -- it was once called La Calle de la Sinogoga because a synogogue was nearby. Many Jews lived in the city and all the booths in that street were staffed by people dressed as medieval Jews -- I am not sure if they really were Jewish or not. And we had also stumbled unknowingly into the International Organ Festival -- with a free concert that night in the cathedral with a choir. The cathedral archive has music from the 15th century by (St.) San Froilan, a former bishop. The program was wonderful -- packed. The organist is from Spain and the local choir sang Gregorian chant.

The Hostal Albany was a great little hotel, but Leon is also a young and vibrant city -- there is a univeristy here. So we again heard singing and laughing right outside out balcony til 5 am -- minus the police sirens, but with church bells periodically. We woke up or rather got up exhausted.

Still we saw one of the few buildings the Catalan architect, Gaudi, built outside his native province. It is a wonderful stone edifice with local cut to his specifications so that snow -- it does snow here a bit -- more on that later -- would cling to the stone´s edges and give a different dimension to the building.

I am surviving on strong Spanish coffee -- usually I only drink decaf -- and lots of hot milk and sugar in it.

We are seeing lots of pilgrims here -- many Germans, Scandinavians, Spaniards, French and Canadians. No Americans to date. Have had fun chatting to people -- getting to use my French, spanish, and German a bit -- though vocabulary and verb tenses are a bit rough in French and German.

Tomorrow we go to Astorga by bus to start the first stage of our walk -- it is now becoming more real.