The Home Stretch


     The German Vodafone seems to be unblocked, so I will try to set it up when I get to Frankfurt, if not Vienna.  If there is an Vodafone Anschluss, I might be able to get the phone working one week into my trip, which would be helpful.


     Every day from now until Saturday, March 10, I have to hoist my backpack on my shoulders, strap it on, and walk to 42nd Street and back along the Hudson, then bicycle the Cherry Walk along the Hudson up to Fairway and back, 7 miles and 3 miles, respectively.   I realize that my knapsack, carrying all my electronic equipment, medications, trip file and more, will weigh at least five pounds more than what I am carrying daily.  I have already removed the extra jacket I packed from the pack to make it lighter, and I need to fish out the travel alarm clock, which isn't essential, for the same reason.  I will have to figure out how to attach the knapsack to the backpack, or carry the knapsack in front of me.  In either event, I am going to look like a peddler of pots, pans and silver, with my aluminum water bottle hanging off the side, along with my walking poles and folding stool.  Which is appropriate, I suppose, as my maternal great-grandfather peddled these sorts of items in Galicia in the 19th century, and thereby I come full circle, in a sense, going back to the Old World from the New, just as laden.

     I am walking and bicycling every day to give my body a fair test of the challenge I will face starting April 13, when I start walking along the Camino de Santiago.  The website of the Confraternity of Saint James, an English site devoted to the Camino, advises that being able to walk about eight to twelve miles a day is optimal for those who want to walk the Camino's entire length in thirty days.  I am not so ambitious, but I have a torn left meniscus.  It gives me no pain, although my medial joint (the one on the inside of the knee) is tender to the touch.   If it acts up between now and two days from my departure, I can still go to the orthopedist for a cortisone injection to keep me going during the trip.  The Confraternity website suggests training and then taking off the month before embarking on the Camino, exactly my plan.  A month doing no more than hoisting the pack onto trains and dumping it onto hotel room floors will be wonderful after this last phase of preparations.

     One of the hardest aspects of this trip will be not carrying carrying a bound book with me.  I love having one in my hands, taking the upper right hand corner of a page between my thumb and index finger and turning a page forward; or, back.  The IPad2 has a few classics (Jane Eyre, Sherlock Holmes) downloaded free via Kobo, (the trademarked online book application),  I hope will stand me in good stead, but I venture out into brave new world, relying on electronic equipment and mountaineering gear to mediate my experiences.  In contrast, over the past few years, I have made many of my trips in the company of an enormous bright green hardcase zippered suitcase that can wheel three-hundred sixty degrees in either direction, and hold over fifty pounds.  I have tested it on many an occasion, and it has never failed me, although I have occasionally had to unzip it and extract a volume or two to stay under the maximum allowable weight limit on flights.  "The Green Monster" a/k/a "Kermit the Frog", purchased at Galeries Lafayette in Paris a few years ago, is instantly recognizable on the baggage carousel --and anywhere else.  It has proved indispensable to me on my book-buying sprees in London, saving me the cost of United Kingdom postal shipping rates, which are exorbitant.  It cannot go on this trip with me, and neither can the books.  Truth be told, the idea of traveling book-less is perhaps the most frightening thought I have about this trip.  I have yet to hear anyone extol the sensual pleasures of holding an IPad's metal casing between the fingers, but perhaps reading on the road, I will be converted.