Home

We made it home after a 25 hour travel day on Tuesday. We woke up at 9 PM Monday night California time and got home and in bed by 10 PM California time on Tuesday - quite a long day. We flew from Madrid to Atlanta then on to Sacramento. The flights and airports were OK and it is nice to fly first class because there is plenty of room. We have been home two days and we are still using Spanish phrases like Gracias and Ola. Jet leg has still got us in its grip even after two days at home. Hopefully tomorrow we can finally shake the last remnants and feel like ourselves again. A nine hour time shift is tough. We should talk about Monday which we spent traveling from Santiago to Madrid on a high speed train. We got a taxi to the train station which was pretty close to our hotel. It was a nice station and the train arrived just a few minutes late. We found our seats and the train headed out at pretty good clip across the Spanish countryside. The first part was in lush green country but then we were crossing the Mesata which was flat and drier than where we walked. We arrive in Madrid and grabbed a taxi to the airport Marriott. Suddenly we were back in the big city and not old villages. We stayed in the hotel and just took it easy. We are still processing our trip. Many people want to talk to us about our experiences and it is hard to put into words. There were three vectors. There was the physical part which involved getting up each day and walking across a range of terrains and weather. There was the emotional vector as you has to focus and keep pushing yourself even when you were exhausted. And there was the spiritual vector as you thought about what you were doing and how it fit into your life and the Pilgrim view of the world. We are looking back but also looking forward. We see the world a little differently after spending so much time in a different country with a different culture and very different people. Their lives are different from ours because of where they live and how they see the world. Small villages are much different from the hustle and bustle of big cities no matter what country you are in. We had wonderful adventure and look forward to many more in the future.