Walking in the clouds

Just celebrated my grandmother's 80th birthday by walking the Tongariro crossing with her and the rest of my family. Was awesome and am in awe of her!

And waiting to get my connecting flight to Auckland. Looking forward to it now.

And I've actually been through Paddington station. Paris was absolutely lovely, I did climb the tower in the end and I just generally enjoyed getting lost around the place.

I caught the Eurostar last night and got into my hotel which is pretty basic but very cheap by London standards.

I don't know what I shall do for the next two days but on Thursday I start the long journey home and I should be fully back by Saturday midday.

Still a wee bit tired

And oddly much more cheerful, I don't know why Rome seemed to get me down, I mean it was full of wonderful sights, endless history and fabulous food. I think it might just have been the heat.

I managed to navigate the metro at 11 in the evening and find my way to my hotel which is absolutely perfect small, cheap (for Paris anyway) and less than 2 minutes walk from a metro.

The food here is amazing as always but unfortunately it's raining outside. I found my way to an English language bookstore and bought the new Terry Pratchett which I'm going to try and read slowly despite devouring most of the other books I've bought in less than and evening.

I also bought a small guide to Paris to help me decide what to do with the rest of my time here (although tomorrow is going to be the Louvre...all day).

I train out of here on the 10th and wind up in London for a couple of days until my flight on the 13th.

I've mostly just been walking around because the crowds kind of scare me right now.

On the first day I threw a couple of coins into the Trevi fountain, walked round the outside of the coloseum, walked over to Travastere to buy some books ( any books...god it feels good to read English language books). I also walked round the ruins by the coloseum, saw the circus maximus and the smallest inhabited island in the world.

On the second day I walked out to the New Zealand embassy, found that the Canadian embassy had moved in and spend the next 2 hours walking round the same few streets looking for the street where they'd moved to. I finally found them, voted (lovely experience, embassy staff are awesome) and then walked back and saw the Pantheon, after that I kind of got a bit lost, found pizza (actually pizza is everywhere) and a gelateria with a huge selection of flavours, two gelatis later the heavens opened and a spectacular thunderstorm started.
I walked back to the pantheon to watch the rain falling down through the dome and then got pretty soaked as I walked back to the hostel marveling at the lightening.

I don't know what I'll do today, I honestly don't feel like I've got the energy for the Vatican so the Sistine chapel might have to wait for the next time I'm here, I might go and wend my way through the capotoline museums.

So anyhow I fly out to Rome tomorrow night, has anyone got any requests for souveneirs?

I can do you yellow arrow things, scallop things and even witch things. I could even do you a skeleton pilgrim tee-shirt.

Hope everyone else is ok.

Love

Anna

And feeling just a little dazed by it all. I stayed in Lavacolla again because I just couldn´t face the walk up to Mount Joy last night.

I walked slowly in this morning with some friends and felt just very very weird.

I´ve walked about 900k and I´m starting to feel it but I would also quite like to start on to Finisterre on Monday, I´ve got the time and honestly I think I would rather not hang around Santiago, it feels so busy and rushed and I´m really only moving and thinking slowly right now.

I´m staying in the Hotel Suso which is quite nice (if small).

I have my compostella but I haven´t done any of the cathedral things yet because I want to wait until late tonight when it´s quiet.

Love you all and hope all is well!

Yesterday everything and everyone got totally drenched in miserable cold rain. I decided that if I could make it the 25k into Palas de Rei I would have earned myself a stay in somewhere with hot showers and a towel bigger than a hankerchief. I made it and had a wonderful evening.

I think I´m going to be staying in cheap hotels for the rest of the way into Santiago (which is only like 3 days) because the last 100k rush is starting and the rushers this time don´t look all that friendly, plus it keeps raining and rain turns albergues into unpleasant seas of mud and seems to send all of the showers cold.

Melide seems quite nice which is all I can really think to say about it, I feel kind of dazed and I´m not sure why.

And I found my spiting frog fountain. I couldn´t remember the name of the albergue but when I saw the fountain and the deck chairs I knew I had found the right place.

The scenery today was amazing, we´re still quite high up so the views over the hills were stunning.

I took the short way and skipped Samos this time and quite liked the route. I´m planning to buy supermarket stuff and sit out in a deck chair....luxury.

I decided to take a very short day to climb a very steep hill. I didn´t stay here last time and I have to admit that the views up here are amazing.

Evem just looking out of the albergue windows is an experience.

I´d write more but I´m kind of fighting the keyboard right now.