Santiago de Compostela!

We arrived in Santiago de Compostela on the 23rd!!!! 450+ kilometers of walking (Sydney has the exact numbers), not including the numerous backtracks. Quite anticlimatic but also really strange to be done with a month of walking. First thought: how overwhelming to be in a regular sized city, with lots of people and traffic. And, how unfortunate that you can't just look for a place to pee behind some bush a little off the path! It's nice to be done, to not have to wake up early, hobble out of bed, pack bags quietly and often in the dark and walk till my feet hurt. But I'm also sad it's over. The atmosphere at the albergues is so warm and all peregrinos compare foot wounds and help each other out. You can also spot a peregrino from a mile away, usually because they're limping. The last week or so we'd been meeting a group of (amazing) Germans, 7 in total, at each albergue and eating and drinking with them. We've since parted ways, also sad. I've learned so many interesting things about Germany, and whenever we are at an impasse, we ask ourselves, "What would the Germans do?" We got to Santiago just in time to celebrate the day of Santiago on the 25th. On the 24th there was a fireworks show from the front of the cathedral--spectacular, with excellent music as well. We got terribly drunk with the Germans, ran into a ton of people we had met on the Camino, and just made general fools of ourselves. Excellent. Now we're in Fisterra, on the western coast of Galicia. We're bumming around on the beach until Syd and I go to La Coruña and Matt and Emily go back to Santiago to catch planes. I go home in a week from tomorrow: absolutely insane. Where have these months gone????