Everybody looks at you but doesn't say Hola or Buen Camino.
Those annoying charity people don't stop you because they know there's a good possibility that you're not Spanish.
Other people stop you in the street and give you things. Which is not a piece of paper to sign. I got an orange off one lady and a miraculous medal off an old man.
You get to see how real life is happening around you. People in cars and busses and taxis look slightly like they are all on a film set. Pretending to be busy just to show up your complete oppositeness.
You get the same wary look from people in shops, I've been into three farmacias looking for tweezers and scissors and they are more scared of me. Maybe it's the aura of mysterious crazy traveller who is walking everywhere. They are strange, watch the jewellery. I've lost all fear of going into shops, I can always get my point across and I finally got my scissors and tweezers! Unfortunately they were in that stupid Armageddon proof plastic and I had to ask the pharmacist for a scissors to open my scissors. Is that technically irony?
I also got my Spanish SIM card! It's a lebara mobile sim with 500 minutes per month. I must try to restrict my use because I'm used to unlimited. Which quickly turns into 2gb a month. So I'm contactable by people now if they really really really need me. Like my sister who pulls up in 35 minutes.
She told me that there was a village that she passed that was totally full of cats and only for it being my birthday she would have got out and never been heard from again.
Walking through a city, you feel kind of proud. The city is the sign of civilisation. So many people living so close together in dense little stacks of houses is not natural. Little villages with their farms spread out around them seems to be so much more sensible, more human way of living. More of a hassle in today's world though, where we have invented so many things that we need and they are all in the city to justify their existence, large hospitals, supermarkets, specialist shops and that kind of thing.
Leon is pretty close to getting it right though I think. There's a huge river passing through it Rio Bernesca and either side is long wide parks with running tracks and nature everywhere. The city is small, about the size of Edinburgh I'm guessing and has sacred churches and plazas every 200 meters. The city is like a series of spiderwebs, little plazas leading off to other plazas and making the most use out if the beautiful weather and wide open spaces as they can.
Also they have Gringotts.
Xx
Buen camino :)
Wow amazing buildings....
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