The Warmup Day

Not really feeling like waking to an alarm I just left my rising this morning to when my body said so... 6:45 a.m. it said so and there was no going back to sleep. I had a solid night sleep from 11:00 last night to 6:45 this morning and when I woke, I was awake!

Having done a lot of preparation last night and only doing a warm-up run, I grabbed my mini pack and struck out around 7:30 stopping at my new favorite breakfast location and taking the time to dine inside with a fresh chocolate pastry and a large freshly squeezed orange juice (the Camino breakfast of champions!). I made it down to the river for 8:00 a.m. already a kilometer behind me and struck out down the river enjoying the scenery. While enjoying the scenery I observed, much to my amusement, a set of escalators up one of the steep Hill sides.

My initial thought was this must be a well if your neighborhood to demand an escalator, but an observation of the buildings nearby but not lean itself to an overly wealthy neighborhood.

A few kilometers into my morning track, I came across my first peregrino of the day, Edem from Israel. Edem had studied in Connecticut and was quite familiar with New England. We stroll down to the Lighthouse where our paths separated.

Interesting little side note, all along the river and at other places along the ocean, I observed exercise stations

there was another exercise station set up with weather resistant, gym grade aerobic equipment. So not only is the river in waterfront accessible to the public, it has been turned into an exercise playground. The best part was as I saw people actually using the equipment.

Further down the trail, I met up with my second peregrino of the day, Alec from Germany who was likewise very familiar with New England and Maine. We walked for a few kilometers until our paths separated.

15 km on the meter I reached the Mercado Metro station which I rode a train back into town where after a brief stop off at my room I was able to meet up again with my friend Charlton from Wales. On our way to the local decathlon store for some equipment that Charlton wanted to pick up we made it impromptu stop off at a cafe and enjoyed a fantastic lunch.

Yes, yes that Sunday tasted every bit as good as it looked! The bottom wasn't really an ice cream is more of a cream base. The chocolate ice cream at top was the perfect blend of chocolate, bitterness, and sweet.

Yes those salads were very good and yes they had ham and very thinly shaved local cheese.

After we completed our shopping trip at decathlon, we headed down to the river side to meet up with my friends Ed and Patty where we ultimately took the six bridge river cruise up and down the River.

from there we made our way slowly back up the bank to the cathedral, on to the rail station to get our tickets for tomorrow's rides, over to the pharmacy to get topical ibuprofen and spray cold, then off to find a bite to eat which ultimately was ham and cheese on toasted croissant which while simple was very good.

One of the discussions I had today revolved around the concept of tourist versus traveler. Alec and I had many definitions that were all accurate (tourists demand an experience for example where a traveler indulges in the local culture) but I think the most definitive and simple definition we came up with was that a traveler travels with their eyes wide open and an open mind.

That is all for today, tomorrow the walking begins in earnest.