It looked nice this morning. My view across the little valley was colorful and sunny. I went down to breakfast and had a light snack and coffee. Two female Pilgrims were also eating but we did not communicate beyond "bom dia". They may have been Spanish. I think they are next door here with me tonight. I know there are two other Pilgrims here and there are so few it probably is.
I saw Jeanne coming up the hill. Actually I thought I saw her coming up the hill but it was some guy in a pink sweatshirt. She was just behind that guy. I took a picture of both of them.
We stopped just up the road to get a coffee at a very empty McDonald's. While there we saw some Pilgrims go by but clearly enough to know who. We were walking on a main road for a while and as we passed a night club with little umbrellas. Jeanne had to have one. She picked one of the rougher looking ones and broke the cable ties holding it. She says she will carry it to Santiago.
Not much further we passed a bakery and the two American girls were there. They asked to walk with us because they keep getting attacked by dogs. Later we would make fun of them for that. I also said on the Caminho you don't need to ask if you can walk with people, you just join them.
We had speculated about Katerina and Audrey since we first encountered them. I said they where probably 25. Jeanne and Francisco thought much younger. After walking together for about 1 kilometer Jeanne could not wait any longer and had to ask. She was very disappointed when Leo was right.
The four of us walked together for the rest of the day. With about 5km to go we were in a good town for lunch. Before going in Jeanne and I had a baby bottle of beer from the takeout counter as we stretched out in the sun for a few minutes.
We went into the restaurant which was occupied by a football team. I tried to ask them if they had won today but by the lack of enthusiasm I assumed they were losers.
We had a nice lunch with the third brand of vinho verde that Francisco told us about. I'm really liking vinho verde in the afternoon. The girls have not been going to restaurants since coming to Portugal and this was their first sit down meal. Audrey is a vegetarian so it makes it a little more difficult, but she had huge salad, fries, ... quite a lot.
At the table next to us was a Portuguese/South African/English woman with her mother. The mother had dementia and you could tell it had been a few days since the woman had had any conversation. She thoroughly explained the menu to us and over the next hour gave us a detailed medical and financial history. She was very nice and helpful but it was hard to get a word in.
We only had 5km to Albergaria-a-Nova leaving the restaurant but we had at least 15 different types of weather. We also had to navigate many large puddles. The ponchos went on, they came off, it got hot, it got cold, it got sunny and it poured rain. It was very strange.
I left the girls at the albergue. The Korean guy was there too. My place was great. They had cold showers.
At about 6pm I met Jeanne and Audrey and we went to the one restaurant at the crossroads near here. It was a small old place. The old guy running it didn't talk a lot and he kept disappearing. The cook was his mother and you could bearly see her behind the bar. The food was good and we had lots of wine.
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