Dawn

Dawn

Sunday, June 08, 2014

León to Bilbao; The public; A bit of rugby; & The train.


I went to Bilbao today, to meet my camino colleagues. For better or worse, I decided to drive to León and take the train from there. It being early Sunday, the roads were empty. In sharp contrast to the train. That said, when things finally settled down at León station, I found myself to be the only person in the carriage with no one beside me. That was after I'd finally found coach no. 11. It was the one with the number 1 on it. This had confused another passenger, who'd taken it to be coach 21 and who almost caused an international incident when 4 foreigners arrived to find her on one of their seats.

One of the advantages of taking public transport is that it allows you to observe, well, the public. Like the chap in the toilets at León station who was going to inordinate lengths to get a central parting. And he was no spring chicken. And then there was the woman in front of me on the platform who had one leg shorter than the other and so was engaged in a perpetual battle to compensate for a leftwards drift.

Back in Pontevedra last night, I watched half an hour of rugby between the Andorran and Galician teams. Or I would have done if they'd kicked off on time, rather than 25 minutes late. Part of the delay, it has to be said, was due to a scrap between 2 of the Pontevedran 5 years olds who'd been chosen to hold the Galician flag. Well, it was asking for trouble to have 5 of them when there are only 4 corners.

It's 5.30 and our carriage has been de-coupled from the rest of the train, which seems to be going somewhere else. I think we're waiting for an engine, which might not have turned up because it's Sunday. One thing's for sure, there's no airconditioning now. And the evening sun is hot through these large windows.

I'll sign off now as we're approaching Bilbao. No one has asked to see my ticket since I got on 4 hours or more ago. Ironically, the train came from Vigo. So I suppose I could have got it there. But, anyway, crossing the meseta to Burgos confirmed the wisdom of our decision to give it a miss and get the train to León next week. One corn stalk looks much like another. Especially in flat terrain.

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