Camino Reflections 1

Camino Reflections...On April 18th I flew into Amsterdam, and stayed at a cheap hotel in Amstelveen about a half hour from the Centraal Station in Amsterdam train where I would leave for Paris the next morning. The lobby of my hotel was a bar that felt familiar. It seemed like home with low light, dark wood, good food, and cold beer. I walked to a small museum about a kilometer away and enjoyed a beautiful art glass collection and some temporary exhibits that dealt with themes of consumerism and identity. That night, I unpacked and stared at all of my gear. I knew that I had packed too much weight for the Camino. So I sifted through trying to decide what was expendable. I would do this several times during the course of the trip and leave behind or send ahead things that I decided I could live without. What do we really need: comfortable shoes, and dry socks, and not much else. That night in my little room with the bathroom down the hall, I packed and repacked several times trying to trim weight. A theme of the Camino de Santiago is what we carry with us--burdens both physical and also the emotional ones that we need to let go. #caminodesantiago #caminofrances