Chaneilles

A difference between the Camino in Spain and here (so far) is that Spain has a series of Medieval towns that used to be important and are still busy. After Le Puy I have been through a series of tiny farming villages that might have a bar if you are lucky, but certainly don't have a grocery store, pharmacy or bank. Having said that, I went through an almost deserted village called La Clauze but received some words of encouragement from a kindly old gent there.

I am now settling into the village of Chanaleilles and looking forward to dinner at 7.30.

Some basics at Saugres

I walked about 12km to Saugres, avoiding being trampled by the fun runners.

There is spectacular countryside, this photo doesn't do it justice.

A complication is that there is a complete electricity blackout in the town. The local grocer had to find his old mechanical scales to weigh the vegetables. I am waiting for dinner provided here at the gite d'etape. I'm not sure what we will be eating, or if we will be able to see it.

There was a vigil Mass at 5 PM and the visiting Spsnish pilgrim managed to do the reading by candlelight. The Gospel was about the rich man and Lazarus, so we had a small taste of simplicity.

Monisole d'Allier

Yesterday I walked about 18 km and my knee still seems to be ok.

In fact it was a hard day's walking. There was a bit of a climb in the morning, but the descent into Monisole, where I stayed last night was tough. A long trail over loose rocks which was as hard as the descent last year after Cruz de Ferro.

The woman at the Gite was a little annoyed that I arrived unannounced at 5pm expecting a meal as well as a bed.

In future ill try to arrive at my destination at 3 at the latest.

This also poses the question what is my goal? Last year it was clearly to get to Santiago, but now there is no destination like that. I'm thinking of doing a shorter distance each day, eg 12km to Saugres today. My feet were a bit sore yesterday and I will get blisters if I do 20km each day. The people at dinner last night were thinking the same and are planning to "smell the roses" en route and spend se time in the villages.

Today we will meet crazy people taking part in Le Grand Trail du St Jacques. This is using the Camino as a fun run. They will run backwards, from places as far as 70km West of Le Puy and finish in ale Puy. Yesterday the path was full of yellow markers positing the way which were put there by the organizers. I don't know how they will run over some these paths.

Anyway I'll give them a wide berth if I meet them today.

Bains

I'm in a little village called Bains waiting for the pizza oven to be warmed up in the pub.

This was my first day walking and I planned an easy day of 10km. My right knee has been hurting recently but it is getting better and is now 95% ok

I might try going a little further tomorrow.

St Michael the Archangel

The chapel of St Michael:

Built on top of a volcanic plug at Le Puy:

Salve Regina

Statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary overlooking Le Puy.

Camino rhythms

 I am getting back into the rhythm of life on the Camino, but this is a little different to last year.

When I did the Camino Frances, it starts with the simple path through the Pyrenees, then gradually you go through bigger and bigger villages until you get to the city of Pamplona.

However here I am in the fairly big and busy town of Le Puy and the Camino then goes through small villages where there seem to be no shops so you depend on the hospitality of the gites. 

It is possible to stay another day at this excellent gite in Le Puy, the "Relais St Jacques" and I think I will do that. Le Puy is worth exploring and going up and down the hills in town will get me back into a walking rhythm.

Mass times

 I had a linguistic confusion when I was told Mass was at "7 heure". What they meant of course, was 7am tomorrow.

Nevertheless, there was a vespers service this afternoon which was good. I'll have to try to get up early tomorrow morning.

Luxury at Le Puy

I have fallen on my feet in Le Puy.

I arrived at 2.30 on a hot sunny day, feeling tired after 7 hours in 4 trains to get here.

The first person I met was Martin from German speaking Switzerland who showed me where to buy a SIM card for my mobile and showed me this excellent gite. It was full yesterday, so I am lucky to have space. There seem to be a lot of pilgrims, so much for the being deserted in comparison to the Spanish Camino.

A Grande Vitesse

I'm in the TGV train bound for St Etienne, having just left Brussels. It's a blur outside, but mostly because of the fog at the moment.

I don't want to be a spoilsport, but the TGV looked like any other train to me. If you look closely you see that you are passing cars and the scenery is going past fairly quickly, but apart from that it felt like any intercity train.

I am completely unconvinced that a fast train will work on the Sydney to Melbourne route. It would have to be a lot cheaper than flying to have any chance. A train is a train and the journey is more laborious and tiring than flying. The claimed benefits are taking you into the centre of the city and developing the towns on the route BUT for many people, getting from home to the train will be further than the airport. Then, when you arrive, what does it matter if you arrive in the back seat of a taxi or in a rail carriage?

Regarding the intermediate towns, it can't stop often or it would lose the advantage if speed. The track has to be flat and straight, not zig-zagging between  little country towns.

From my observation of my TGV trip today, most of the business people were on the Brussels to Paris section. Where is there an equivalent to that in Australia? For the rest of the journey most of the passengers were on private journeys, trying to sleep away the tedium of the trip. There were no meals, just very simple snacks in one carriage which very few people bothered about.

I think a fast train is just another bug project that excites some dreamy politicians but it would be an expensive white elephant.

Getting ready

I just picked up my train ticket to Le Puy from Central station in Antwerp. God willing, I will be there tomorrow.

Then a quick visit to the Our Lady of Protection chapel in the centre of town. We'll see what happens.

Another pile of containers

More container advertising in the centre of town:

It's spreading

This is my first sighting in continental Europe (apart from Brussels airport ) of a flat white coffee. It appeared in a cafe in Antwerp and the woman who served me confirmed that it was new and she had never heard of it before.

Sant'Egidio community in Antwerp

We assisted at Mass today in the church of Sint Carolus Borromeus, with the Sant'Egidio community in Antwerp. Indeed, they know the people Joe and I met in the Sant'Egidio community in New York. Both are very active communities, but it is unknown in Australia.

Container advertisements

This is a recently popular style of advertising being used in Antwerp: stack up some shipping containers in the street and put large photos of fashion models on them.

Red Star Line

Walked around Antwerp with Bart. We saw the museum to the Red Star Line which will open soon in Antwerp.

This was a shipping line which operated from about 1860 to 1930. Initially it carried cargo, then passengers, mostly from Eastern Europe to the USA.

There is a strong historical connection from migrants in America to this shipping line.

Around the museum there are many signs like this which record the histories of individual passengers:

Tourist things

 I spent yesterday doing lazy sightseeing, mostly from the "hop on, hop off" bus. I did the uptown, downtown and Brooklyn tours. All good and informative and entertaining commentary. Then I finished with a boat tour around Manhattan at dusk and saw the Statue of Liberty close up.

On the advice of one of the guides I had dinner in Greenwich Village.

There was no time to visit a museum, especially when I saw the queues outside them. I don't regret this, I find museums and art galleries hard work and I rarely know what I'm looking at.

Ommegang in New York

It's a little difficult to post a picture on the blog at the moment, but today Joe, Denis and myself visited the Ommegang brewery near Coopersville in New York. This was started by an American brewer who became a fan of Belgian beers and started to brew similar ones here.

I had mussels, frites and an Ommegang ale similar to De Konick. A perfect combination.

Then we visited the shrine to the North American martyrs and St Kateri Tekekawitha at Auriesville in New York. We met one of the Jesuit priests there, who kindly showed us over the shrine and we swapped some Jesuit war stories.

Along the Hudson

Traveling by train along the banks of the Hudson River from New York to Joe's home town of Albany.

There are national parks, villages and even commercial river barges.

New York frites

A bit of brain food being distributed to the financial experts of Wall St.

A bit of Haarlem in Harlem

Sightseeing on the lower Eastside and upper Westside, then dinner in Harlem.

Surprisingly, the pre dinner drink was a Duvel beer from Belgium.

Main course was blackened catfish, and very tasty it was.

It was a good night, the restaurant was noisy, but the crowd was formal but still very welcoming.

There seem to be many accommodation possibilities here, including brand new, comfortable hotels in Queens.

The thing that has really surprised me is the amount of building going on, including on Manhattan. I thought it would already be fully developed, but there are new buildings everywhere.

The subway is brilliant, though despite its name it is often above ground. I wonder how many protest groups would spring up if we built elevated train lines through Sydney? We are a nation of whingers sometimes.

St Patrick and St Giles

Mass this morning in St Patrick's Cathedral where renovation an maintenance is busily being done, 

Then the baseball,

Then joining the evening prayers of the Sant'Egidio community, who kindly invited us to join them in their evening meal.

Energetic, committed, welcoming and joyful people.

A bit of home

Something in a shop here to remind me of home.

Yankees def Red Sox 4-3 Yay!!!

The Red Sox had just beaten the Yankees in the first 3 of a 4 game series, so the fans were not confident, including the lady from the Bronx who sold me this shirt in the Yankee store at the stadium.

The ground was full, the sun was shining, the beer was expensive and it was a great day.

The Yankees won on the last play in the last innings, how good is that!!!

We saw the batters close up by standing up on the concourse, then went up to our seats in the "nosebleeds" at the top of the stadium to see the panorama. There we sat behind Paul from Connecticut and his wife, their children and some friends of their children. Paul is a Yankees supporter but some of the children are Red Sox, but they had a good time too. Good people having a good time.

Mugged by New York

On Saturday night Joe and I walked around lower Manhatten, here in front of Grand Central Station and the Chrysler building.

People everywhere enjoying a warm and peaceful night. The subway is clean, efficient and cheap and makes it very easy to get around. I suppose one of my preconceptions was that NY is a little dangerous, but so far all I have experienced is courtesy, charm and consideration and nothing slightly resembling danger. I keep asking the locals where I would have to go to get mugged. They assure me it is possible, but I remain unconvinced.

Modern virtues

On the plane here, a German woman had a tattoo on her arm reading:

Freiheit

Mut

Toleranz

Vertrauen

(Freedom, courage, tolerance, trust)

Admirable, I suppose, but courage is the only overlap with traditional virtues. The others are about not judging, or perhaps the idea that there is nothing to judge, even for God.

(

Ed Koch bridge

I just walked across the Ed Koch bridge to a Starbucks on Msnhatten. The curse of the bicycle has even afflicted New York.

I'm meeting Joe under the clock in Grand Central Station.

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the hotel:

I got the bright idea of using a piece of rope instead of a belt on the plane, to avoid having to take off my belt when going through security. The ends of the rope started to fray, and it did occur to me that it looked a little Jewish.

Just now, someone asked me "is the holiday over?"

I think this was a mild rebuke for using the train on the Sabbath.

It's warm in America

I just arrived at New York JFK airport.

So far I feel ok, I will know more in a few hours.

Who is playing in the Women's tennis?

If it's any of the screamers (Sharapova, Azharenka etc) I won't be watching.

Just heard we have our 4th change of PM in the last 6 years. Here's hoping for some stability.

A Heathrow state of mind

Waiting at Heathrow for the flight to New York.
So far, so good. It is now 6.30am local time and after the first two hours yesterday the whole flight was in darkness and I managed a bit of sleep.
The flight to NY leaves in 2 hours and I arrive there at 11am local time, so it is one long morning.
I take off from here 30 minutes before the close of polling in Australia, so I depend on the BA crew for information about the election.

First problem

It is now 10.45pm in Changi airport and I'm waiting to revised the plane to London.

An hour before boarding the plane in Sydney I realized I'd left my baseball tickets at home. Drat.

I have the confirmation email I received when I booked the tickets, maybe they will accept that from a poor traveller from the other side of the world.

Passing the time

How many books can you read in 30 hours?

Voting below the line in the Senate

I normally avoid politics in this blog, but there is an election next week in Australia. Before voting, I recommend you read this post by the ABC Election expert, Antony Green.

The ballot paper for the Senate in NSW is 1 metre long, has 110 candidates and magnifying glasses are provided. This is more than a joke, it is an impediment to democracy. There are several problems such as:

• because there are so many candidates, and about 20 groupings, it is very easy for people to make a mistake in choosing who to vote for. Several rival parties have similar names on the ballot paper.
• you have the choice of putting the numeral "1" for one (and only one) grouping "above the line". If you do this, your vote is handled according to preference deals which have been made between all the parties. It is very unlikely you know what will happen to your vote and the final effect of your vote could be the opposite of what you intend. Some of the deals that have been made between parties seem very strange, considering the policies they have in public.
• You can also vote "below the line" which means you have to fill in the numerals 1,2,3,4,5........110 in all the boxes. (the total of 110 applies in NSW, it is different in other states) Good luck with getting that right!!!
• because of these difficulties, it is almost certain that next week someone will be elected to the Australian Senate for the next 6 years, simply because of the deficient voting system and not because the voters want it.

This is just plain wrong and it has to be changed. None of the parties have been talking about this, probably because they don't want to be distracted in the middle of an election campaign by talking about the voting system. Hopefully they will do something after the election.

As I said, I recommend you read Antony Green's article. He makes some good suggestions about what to do. I was surprised to learn from him that you have the option of voting both "above the line" and "below the line" on the same ballot paper. According to Antony Green, the below the line vote takes precedence, but if you make a mistake and it is informal, they will count your above the line vote.