The End of the World

I have been to the end of the world and back. If I had said that a week ago I'd have sounded like a wanker. And while I still sound like a wanker, at least now the end of the world bit is official. Finisterre on the west coast of Spain is, for some reason, lovingly referred to as the end of the world. I got this from an Italian, so it must be true. If it's not, not only will I come off as a wanker, but as someone who is lazy and doesn't do his research. But the name Finisterre comes from the Latin name Finisterrae, which literally means "Land's End". So maybe I've staved off the lazy and wanker monickers for a while, and can return to the "doesn't proof read, shabby speller, and snazzy fashion sense" that we're all used to.

I dragged my snazzy fashioned sense ass out of bed on Thursday after not enough sleep, and for the 4th time in two months I found myself wandering around the Madrid Airport. Airport fatigue was setting in due to me having just arrived back from London less than a week prior to these events, but I was ready for my 1 cent trip, which took less than an hour, and thankfully the security people didn't steal anything from me and I wasn't hauled off into the small little booth where screams and whimpering can be heard.

Santiago de Compostela is a town northwest in Spain. It is named after Saint James ('San' being saint, and 'Tiago' obviously referring to Othello in some way, which is set in Italy, so logically there's a connection), and is famous for a great big Barad-Dur-like cathedral.



At this point I decide that if I ever have another cat, it might be named Othello, though I could call it Santa and it still wouldn't respond. The town is small, has an old-town in the middle of it with lots of narrow and winding streets which are cool, and some old buildings which are very photogenic. But Santiago de C. is also the rainiest place in Spain. It has a Scottish near-constant drizzle and no such down-pour, but we were spared, which is good, as I have recently walked for 5.5 hours under a down-pour and you know what? It isn't as much fun as you think it is.



On our first night there (complete with "hey, we did not book a double bed, can we have what we actually reserved?") we went off to find a restaurant with reasonable prices and came across such an establishment. We sat down and noticed a peculiarity - we were the oldest of all the customers. More and more came in and it was still true. Also true was that we were the only ones drinking, so perhaps we had found a student restaurant. I'd never seen anything like it before, except the next day we did go wandering around the university here, through some of the faculties and tried to get ourselves into a lecture, but they were small and we would have been noticed as not belonging there. The things we do for fun, huh?

We spent a good couple of hours debating the official lyrics of many songs from Moulin Rouge and Disney, as the Italians have their own versions which are completely different from the original English, so there was much shouting and swearing, translating from Italian into Spanish and English into Spanish, more singing and eventually deciding that our combined knowledge of useless trivia is a little sad if you can't find a karaoke place.

Getting to Finisterre entailed a 2.5 hour bus ride along a twisty maze of roads with a driver who had not heard of gentle braking or gentle acceleration, but instead preferred sharp bursts of both. My stomach was not feeling the greatest. And Finisterre itself is a village with lots of boats, lots of cats and dogs roaming the streets, lots of weird people who look as though they're screaming for some amusement, and lots of rain.



I seem to like looking in this direction.

We hustled back to Santiago to catch another bus to the airport, and then had to wait as the plane was delayed. Curiously, airport security will not let you take on a bottle of water or a jar of marmite (from my last trip), but will let you proceed with a brand new and very sharp bottle opener and corkscrew. Maybe they just don't like Ryanair. Now, the plane to Santiago had the roughest landing I have ever had (I think the plane bounced off the tarmac), but the landing back into Madrid was one of the scariest I had ever endured. The plane was wobbling from side to side violently as we approached the runway, and I will not lie but it was the first time in my life where I thought that we would actually crash. As a result of the delay I missed the train back home, so I had to take 3 metros and then a bus.

I like destinations. I don't like travelling. And aiport fatigue had truly set in, so it pains me to think that I have to do this again in 2 weeks.