September 23
I feel like a useless, monolingual, directionally challenged human being. On Saturday, Jerri asked me to do one thing: locate the nearest Catholic church. I might not have been so totally incompetent if our not-to-scale tourist map had churches marked on it. Instead I had to rely on verbal directions. After more than an hour and no fewer than six requests for help, a sweet abuela and her two young grandchildren walked me there (I was so close at the time, but I didn't know that). I could have screamed, cried, and/or thrown something when I discovered the church was across the street from one corner of Yamaguchi Park, about a block and a half from our apartment.
What I am good for: using my limited knowledge of the many functions on my phone to communicate with family, friends, the insurance company, etc; keeping the blog up-to-date; googling for information, such as the hours for Mass at the above church.
I've given up on the Land Rover count--here in Pamplona, there are too many sightings to make them noteworthy. However, the kitty count stands at a paltry 17. There just don't seem to be any cats in Pamplona.
On Thursday I found a one-cent euro and on Friday three of them. However, hon, a small wad of aluminum foil fooled me on one other day. :-p
A lap around the perimeter of Yamaguchi Park is 0.7 miles. I get many odd looks, even though there are other people walking and jogging. Maybe it's the hiking pants and heavy-duty boots?
We haven't seen any single-residence trash cans. Instead, interspersed along the roads, in parking lots, and in neighborhood courtyards, there are communal trash centers--dumpsters and recycling containers. And, for some reason that must make sense, the trash trucks come at night. They empty the one outside our building around 10 p.m.
While walking around the park today, I try to chat with God about what I'm doing here. But I find I'm too angry that He's not sharing how all of this fits into a plan for my life.
While Beth was in the ICU, Jerri noticed “M" after Beth's name. We were amused by this typo. Then, when Jerri was reading her copy of Beth's ICU stay summary, she saw “mujer" in Beth's vital information. It was a definite D'oh! moment. We'd been thinking in English (male/female) instead of Spanish (hombre/mujer).
Just like in the United States, restaurants and other businesses advertise free WiFi. It's great to have access, but they have ridiculously long, random passwords, such as this one from the first room we had in Pamplona: 98MEF88G82F37E854395. And access is frustratingly specific. One day we ate dinner outdoors next to a restaurant where we'd previously eaten lunch while using its WiFi. Even though we were seated just tables away from the restaurant with WiFi, the signal came up as “out of range."
I feel like a useless, monolingual, directionally challenged human being. On Saturday, Jerri asked me to do one thing: locate the nearest Catholic church. I might not have been so totally incompetent if our not-to-scale tourist map had churches marked on it. Instead I had to rely on verbal directions. After more than an hour and no fewer than six requests for help, a sweet abuela and her two young grandchildren walked me there (I was so close at the time, but I didn't know that). I could have screamed, cried, and/or thrown something when I discovered the church was across the street from one corner of Yamaguchi Park, about a block and a half from our apartment.
What I am good for: using my limited knowledge of the many functions on my phone to communicate with family, friends, the insurance company, etc; keeping the blog up-to-date; googling for information, such as the hours for Mass at the above church.
I've given up on the Land Rover count--here in Pamplona, there are too many sightings to make them noteworthy. However, the kitty count stands at a paltry 17. There just don't seem to be any cats in Pamplona.
On Thursday I found a one-cent euro and on Friday three of them. However, hon, a small wad of aluminum foil fooled me on one other day. :-p
A lap around the perimeter of Yamaguchi Park is 0.7 miles. I get many odd looks, even though there are other people walking and jogging. Maybe it's the hiking pants and heavy-duty boots?
We haven't seen any single-residence trash cans. Instead, interspersed along the roads, in parking lots, and in neighborhood courtyards, there are communal trash centers--dumpsters and recycling containers. And, for some reason that must make sense, the trash trucks come at night. They empty the one outside our building around 10 p.m.
While walking around the park today, I try to chat with God about what I'm doing here. But I find I'm too angry that He's not sharing how all of this fits into a plan for my life.
While Beth was in the ICU, Jerri noticed “M" after Beth's name. We were amused by this typo. Then, when Jerri was reading her copy of Beth's ICU stay summary, she saw “mujer" in Beth's vital information. It was a definite D'oh! moment. We'd been thinking in English (male/female) instead of Spanish (hombre/mujer).
Just like in the United States, restaurants and other businesses advertise free WiFi. It's great to have access, but they have ridiculously long, random passwords, such as this one from the first room we had in Pamplona: 98MEF88G82F37E854395. And access is frustratingly specific. One day we ate dinner outdoors next to a restaurant where we'd previously eaten lunch while using its WiFi. Even though we were seated just tables away from the restaurant with WiFi, the signal came up as “out of range."
Well ma, consider this. If you can get through an incident like this in a foreign country, and if you can accept God's changes to the plans you had, don't you feel you've grown and learned something valuable?l
ReplyDeleteHi Karen,
ReplyDeleteI have to echo what Robert said...God's plans for us are almost never the same as our own plans for ourselves! But you can trust Him 100% that He will provide you the opportunity to grow in your relationship with Him through this journey with whatever zigs and zags it brings. God bless you for doing the "little" things and keeping up the blog. I know that everyone here is so very grateful to be able to read about your pilgrimage almost (haha) as if we were there!
I suspect that Pamplona is a dog city. Pray to God to send you some cats. :)
ReplyDeleteJen
To be honest, I was beginning to wonder if God's plan was for me to learn to accept what I would think of as "failure." If I didn't get to Santiago, or had to travel some of they way other than on foot, my normal reaction would be that I had failed; but perhaps I'm meant to see that, when circumstances change, I have to adjust the definition of what "success" for the goal is. I know I have to learn that "perfect" is not possible (nor is it meant to be), that He accepts my best efforts, and I need to accept them, too. Whether my hard head retains that remains to be seen.
ReplyDelete