Galicia, here I am...

I am now in Galicia, the first crossing of a state line in my trip. Spain is often referred to as one of the most decentralized countries in the EU, and apparently each state is basically an entirely different country. So far that has proven to be true, as Galicians speak something other than Spanish. I´m not exactly sure what it is. I can understand a lot of it, but often times it´s as if the language just replaced one letter with another. For example, "tengo" becomes "teño", and "caja" becomes "caixa". Weird. It´s something in between Spanish and Portuguese, and I guess it might be a clue as to where all these romance languages have a common link.

The road today was heinous. Uphill. Upwind. In the rain. Visibility of about 15 feet. We had a big mountain pass to overcome, and I guess the weather is part and parcel of the terrotory. Despite that, I felt good, kept my cadence high, and made good time to Portomarin, the last stop before Santiago. The public albergue in Portomarin was full ("completo", another example of a word that I know, but it takes on different meaning here...), so I was forced to seek out an alternative. I was happy that alternative only cost me 8€, and it seems like it´s a posh little place. Unfortunately, though, there are many more pilgrims because we are within the 100km range required by the church to grant the "compostella". The compostella is a document that grants people grace. So tourists fly into the city that´s 100km away and walk from there to get grace. People like the annoying Venezuelans who other people in the albergue are griping about.

30 seconds left on my internet, so I gotta bounce.