Canada to Irun, Spain

We are finally on our way, me and my daughter in law Sharaya . The plane is soaring over the rugged Rockie Mountains of Canada. Our first destination is Toronto. Amazingly, we will be in the airport at the same time as my son Dylan. He has been working the last 4 weeks  in Toronto and returns home to Vancouver today. There is a slim chance that  he and his wife (my traveling companion) Sharaya will be able to meet up. Much depends on security so we shall remain cautiously hopeful.

We have a 2 hour layover before flying to Paris which isn’t bad. I enjoy getting up and moving around. I have my compression sleeves on my calves. They helped tremendously last year when I tried them out for the first time. The antsy restless legs that I normally experience after 4 hours disappear with the use of these easy to pack and wear items.  They are critical to my traveling comfort.

There is a nice young couple behind me with a young baby. Sharaya is sitting with them and they are having a very lively conversation. I’m just in front with a window seat and a view of the landscape below that is dotted with puffy white clouds.  An older couple beside me just finished a card game called “stupid”.  I may ask them to teach me how to play. Really, how difficult could a game with that name be?

I was not going to blog this trip, out of consideration for Sharaya. However I’ve found out that she’s brought her journal so that changes things a bit. I may do a mini blog version this year. It’s a great way to look back and experience your trip all over again. Also there may be a few future pilgrims it could help out. I know the travel blog of one particular pilgrim has assisted me greatly – see “Trepidatious Travler” and Maggie’s accounting of multiple Caminos.

The meetup between Dylan and Sharaya didn’t happen on account of security and being in different terminals. We did out best, racing like maniacs thru the terminal with our heavy packs bumping behind us. We felt like a couple of contestants from The Amazing Race – a well know reality tv show from the West. But it was not to be and we settled for a phone call instead.

Well we have arrived in Paris and are now waiting for our train to Irun. It was a short walk from the airport, 15 minutes tops. We went looking for a bathroom we could clean up in. Sharaya went first and came back with a rather dejected look. They were charging to use their facilities. Being Canadians we decided to roam around a little and eventually found a clean and free bathroom at the Sheraton Hotel. We are now passing time as we wait for the train to leave for Irun where we will begin the first leg of our Camino.  We will be on the fast TGV train that was recommended to us. Our tickets were purchased months ago and that’s a good thing as it’s a very busy and crowded train station. I will add in my first photo here of a very tired traveler. As you can see packs make very good pillows.