The massive door into the Cathedral’s albergue quarters shut behind us and we were welcomed by a man who was smiling and tangibly gentle in spirit...deep breath and an ahh...sanctuary. He expressed gratitude that we were there. We were grateful to be offered a mat to sleep on the floor. He advised us of the evening’s schedule: community dinner at 8pm, followed by a short prayer service, and that the cost of our stay with dinner was by donation. We would have paid whatever was asked for a roof over our heads!
After dropping off our backpacks in a room bare of furniture but stacked with backpacks against the walls, we headed back out into the “festivities” to find a store to buy fruit and other snacks. Thankfully, we safely maneuvered our way through the several blocks of drunks to a street where the families and not inebriated festival goers were celebrating. This lovely street filled with ice cream and food carts, street entertainers, balloons and bubble blowers was just a block or two from the streets of drunken revelry. It was quite the sight to see children wide-eyed and mouths gaped upon catching a peek at the intoxicated celebrations and then seeing their parents shoo them away as quick as possible!
Upon our return to the Cathedral we encountered an equally entertaining sight: little old Spanish ladies headed for evening church service, all dollied up in their church attire and heels, held handkerchiefs to their noses and shook their heads in disapproval as they navigated their way through the drunks, broken glass and the urine! Then there was more shaking of their heads as they passed a young man in costume chatting it up with a girl outside the entrance to the Cathedral - he was shirtless but for the angels wings strapped to his back and he wore a white flapped skirt with a giant fake penis hanging out! Seriously!
We expected our community dinner to be sparse, as the number of pilgrims far exceeded capacity. The parish volunteers packed us into the dining room and a hallway quickly converted into a makeshift overflow dining room. Then, unexpectedly, the priest arrived, led us in a beautiful and humorous blessing and he personally served us our meal! The food and wine was plentiful and the communion with the other pilgrims as well as the priest was heart warming, gratitude-filled, and joyous. We came from different countries, spoke different languages, lived dramatically different lives, and still, I had never experienced true communion with others like this. I imagine that this might be how the American pilgrims felt at the first Thanksgiving meal with the Native Americans.
After dinner, the priest led us into the church and passed out a prayer sheet translated into probably 7 or so languages. It was very powerful to hear the same prayer read by the native speakers of each of these different languages.
That night, Mason, our friend from Holland, a young man from London and I slept on mats in the Priest’s grand office that smelt of pipe tobacco. We could hear the partying continuing all through the night just on the other side of the wall of our improvised bedroom.
When we left our sanctuary early the next morning, not particularly well rested, but deeply touched by our fellowship at the parish albergue, we came across cleanup crews water blasting the streets and straggling party goers still drinking. One straggler presented us with an apt ending to our time in Logroño. This young man was in a business suit and while holding his penis in one hand to urinate, he raised his other hand to us and wished us “Buen Camino!”
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