The Stone Site

“Most of the advertisement is actually read after you have bought a thing and it’s purpose is to convince the buyer that he/she has done a good decision”.

My memory is like a nonstick Teflon plan. Whatever goes in, goes perhaps even faster out. However even though forgotten, I can often remember from where or what book I forgot it?!? Therefore, I avoid getting rid of books.  So when browsing through twitter I suddenly started to think about Karl-Erik Wäneryd wrote in his book 1983 about marketing – and then it’s just to start remembering, what color the book should have, how old it could be and then after some searching I find it. And then it’s just to brush up the memory browsing the book.

So, according to the theory I will avoid reading bad things about the Camino.  And yes – I haven’t read any bad things about the Camino! Is it because there are not bad things to read about or that I filter it out? Well, not everything can be found in books – sometimes you need GOOGLE. Googling on “10 bad things Camino” I found this article; “10 Reasons Why El Camino Santiago Sucks” and even though it’s written a bit blunt I found this a bit amusing;

• “10. It’s hard to take a piss. There’s little privacy. Cars and pilgrims are constantly passing you by. After 3 p.m. most pilgrims retire to their albergues (huts) and you’ll get more privacy to do your business. Nevertheless, at 7 p.m. one jogger still managed to catch me with my pants down.”  (http://francistapon.com/Travels/Spain-Trails/10-Reasons-Why-El-Camino-Santiago-Sucks).

Well, that’s always a lesson learned!

Show my your bookshelf and I will tell your where you spend your money 😉  …. As you can see i’m quite fond of the “Dummies”-books, when thinking of how to solve practical issues they have often a very straightforward approach. There is actually one “Dummies” about the Camino;  “El camino de Santiago para Dummies” but in Spannish! I absolutely feel like a dummy in this area – so an english version should have been fine…

Tick, Tack, Tick, Tack … the clock is ticking fast and i’m trying to figure out what I have missed. The insurances are checked, haven’t selected the stone to bring yet (but will). This adventure is really a project! And talking about projects – I see that our project could end in two ways.

When Cristóbal Colón (also known as Christopher Columbus) found America for his first time. Visiting Huelva in Spain last year, there as an outdoor museum about Christóbal and I learned how well he planned that trip. Checking up with people that had been close the edge of the world etc – and even though it was not India they didn’t fell off the earth.

Then we have Salomon August Andrée, the guy that strongly believed that he could flew over the Artic with a poorly build and design balloon. Unrealistic expectations combined with lack of planning and good equipment ended his project and after walking around for many weeks in the cold, trying to get back, he died.  (Since I was not born at that time either able to travel in time, I have done my own reconstruction of Mr Andrée flying his balloon).

So , will we end up as Mr Colón, successfully reaching our target just to discover that we have walked to Madrid instead of Compostela or getting lost somewhere in the Rioja district, dying of too much sun and fine red wine when trying to get back Saint Jean? Well, the future will tell…

Time flies – some months ago the Camino was quite distant and soon I’m going to start the long walk – or to be more correct, we will start our walk! I’m not doing this alone – eventhough i’m responsible for “the social side”, my wife is absolutely a big, big part of this adventure. So to prepare not just for walking but also eating and some drinking, we had a nice dinner testing some Spannish wine. One ambition with the trip is for us to learn more about wine besides beeing able to differ red wine from white.

So, during the dinner I got the chance of interviewing my wife about the trip. I may say that she was not so impressed about my skills in asking questions, perhaps I should have asked them long time before. But better late than never. So let’s go..

What do you look forward to regarding the Camino?

I look forward to the challenge of the long walk and the experience, but also leaving the daily routines behind. I do like that you have to live with the things you can carry, quite a minimalistic life. And of course, having some chances to taste some good wine and food would be nice.

What do you think will the hardest part with this journey?

Besides my husband? Well, I know that i’m sometimes lose my patience and give up to easy perhaps. However, we have tested the equipment and as last weekend was very warm I know a bit more about walking in the heat. But again, keeping up the endurance is perhaps the most important part, but also the hardest.

How will it be to reach Compostela?

No idea, I do look forward to that day. Being able to arrive there means that I have accomplished a big challenge hopefully learning a lot about myself and my life. But let’s see, you can’t be sure how it will be before you have done it.

We have stopped walking (to have fresh legs when doing the heavy walking), which means that there is some time for doing something else, like working on this page! And I must admit – I like it! Working with IT for over thirty years every day is about endless problems, errors, issues and managing unhappy and disappointed users, managers or whoever I may get in touch with. Therefore, it’s quite nice to be able to just “play-around” with a system, finding new features and functions and hopefully create something that is somewhat useful. As always with IT-systems there are things, that are not working as supposed, but I don’t have to care about it! If there is a plug-in that don’t work just wipe it and try another one.

Found a nice weather plug-in and realized how useful it could be to know more about weather along the Camino. But what has happened? Sweden use to be a cold, rainy spot with sunshine just one or two days during the whole summer.  But now it looks to be the opposite. 8 degrees in Compostela and 18 in Stockholm. Walking the last weekends in about 25 degrees I should be happy with temperatures around 15 – but 8 degrees and rain. That could be hard. I’m happy that I bought a good classic Swedish raincoat, Tretorn – it’s so Swedish, it even the flag printed in several places and of course manufactured in China like everything else nowadays!

Tretorn

As understood one part of the Camino is about walking. So, what to concentrate on; the feet or the shoes?

The question is perhaps a bit strange and should the feet fit the shoes or the shoes fit the feet? – Well isn’t it a question about both the feet and the shoes and does it matter how it is, as long as they fit together! Life is more than feet and shoes, it’s about work and non-work, health and non-health and of course everything should be in balance – but what is balance?

Is there a balance between my feet and shoes, if they are both equally unhappy living under a compromise? Or should they be equally happy living the optimal life? Well I have also understood that another part of the Camino is about thinking so perhaps this is something to think about walking in 35 degrees sunshine or 14 degrees with rain…