journeys Archives - Nadine Walks

Revealing my latest Project: ‘After the Camino’ e-book!

October 18, 2017

Hi everyone, I’ve written an E-book! It’s called ‘After the Camino’!

Here it is, for your viewing/reading pleasure (click this link, or any of the links in this post). I’ve been calling it a ‘small’ and ‘simple’ thing, though when all was said and done it clocked in at a little over 50 pages. Some of those pages are photos and there’s much less text per page than what I’m used to, so 50 pages feels much bigger than it actually is.

Despite this, ‘After the Camino’ is a book, and I’d love for you to take a look. The chapters read like blog posts, so in a way it feels a bit like a collection of blog posts, with a focus on tips for dealing with the ‘post Camino blues’. Its ideal audience is anyone who has walked a Camino and has returned home and felt a bit lost, or felt like they weren’t sure what to do next.

But in some ways, I think it can be for anyone who has had a big experience and is transitioning back to regular life, and feeling like something is now missing. Most of the content is framed around a Camino experience, but the concepts can be applied to nearly anything. In any case, the book is free, so I think you should all take a look, pilgrim or not! (And if you’re in the planning stages of a pilgrimage, then bookmark this page and come back when you’ve returned from your Camino. This book might help).

Writing this and putting it together was a good experience for me. It never felt overwhelming, and maybe that’s because I worked in stages, and with small steps (like I usually do). I wrote most of it back in the spring, added a few chapters this summer, and have spent the last couple of months tinkering away at putting it together in an e-book format. There was a lot to learn there, and still more to go, I’m sure.

I could have toyed with this for another two months but have you ever heard the expression ‘begin before you’re ready?’. Hmm, well, I’m not sure that this was the expression I was looking for… but in any case the idea was that I may have never felt ready to hit publish and send it out into the great unknown. I needed to finally say to myself ‘good enough’ and then just take the next step.

Here are a couple technical details: if you want to download the book, you’re going to have to submit your email to essentially ‘subscribe’ to the book. There are a couple emails involved here; you’ll have to enter your email and name, then confirm, wait a few minutes (this is key… just wait for it, the email will eventually arrive), and THEN you’ll get the email with the link to the book.

I wish this process could be smoother and less complicated, but it’s what I’ve got for now. Doing it in this way is important to me because it gives me a sense of how many of you are interested in taking a look at the book. As I’ve mentioned before, I have other ideas for projects around this ‘After the Camino’ idea, and am thinking about developing an e-course. But in order to invest a lot of time into that, I want to have a sense of the level of interest.

So, happy reading, and the next time you’ll hear from me here will hopefully be soon, with my final blog post from the Chemin du Puy.

The Kick-Off of my Philadelphia Coffee Tour: Fishtown & La Colombe

January 10, 2016

Coffee is- and this will come as no surprise to my family, friends, and even many readers of this blog- one of my favorite things. I love waking up in the morning and knowing that the very first thing I’m going to do is walk into my kitchen a brew a pot, or maybe scoop some finely ground espresso into my stove-top Moka.

I love coffee at home, but I love coffee when I’m out, too. I made it a goal to drink as many café con leches as possible when I walked my Caminos (and to be honest, this was one of the easiest goals I’ve ever set for myself), I have a very long relationship with the café crème in France, and I even made a (small) pilgrimage to the first Starbucks in Seattle.

But this year, I set another kind of coffee goal, and this one involved drinking cups a little closer to home: to explore the coffee scene in Philadelphia. I live a little outside the city, and I have my favorite coffee shops in my own town that I’ve been frequenting over the years. I’ve been to some great cafés in Philly, but for as long as I’ve lived here, I have to say that I’ve barely scratched the surface of the coffee culture in my home city.

Several weeks ago I was scrolling a little mindlessly through Facebook when an article caught my eye: “Where to Find the Top Coffee Shops and Espresso Bars in Philadelphia”. 30 coffee shops were highlighted, in areas and neighborhoods all over the city.

“This would be a cool thing to try,” I thought to myself. “What if I could have a coffee in every one of these places?”

A friend of mine enthusiastically jumped on this idea with me, and just like that, a new goal was born: spend 2016 drinking all the coffee in Philadelphia (or, as much of it as possible).

So I’m kicking off what I hope to be an on-going series of posts with the first coffee shop on my pilgrimage, as well as a tiny glimpse into an up-and-coming neighborhood of Philly: Fishtown.

I’d been to Fishtown only a few times before, but in the past few years I’d been hearing a lot about the area. A traditionally working class neighborhood, named for once being the center of the shad fishing industry due to its border along the Delaware River, Fishtown is emerging as a truly creative center. An eclectic mix of people make up the area, from families who have settled here for generations to artists, musicians, writers, students. Galleries, cafés, studios, restaurants and independently-owned shops, along with lines of row homes, dot the small network of streets that make up the triangular grid of the neighborhood. The streets are lively but not chaotic- Fishtown sits directly northeast of center city so it is close to the action but also slightly removed.

There were several Fishtown coffee shops on our list but we only made it to one of them, as well as another in the neighboring area of Northern Liberties (my arbitrary “rules” for this pilgrimage include having some kind of coffee drink in every place. Stopping by to check out the space doesn’t fully count- I need to taste the coffee, too. But this means that doing more than 2 or 3 stops in a day is going to be challenging unless I want the caffeine to keep me up all night).

We hit the spot that may have been at the very top of my list- the flagship La Colombe café. La Colombe is probably the most well-known coffee company in Philadelphia. Founded in 1994, its first café was located near Rittenhouse Square, and it now has locations across the city, plus cafés in New York City, Washington DC and Chicago.

Just over a year ago, La Colombe’s new home base was opened in a large warehouse in Fishtown, and the place is amazing. It’s enormous, with space for offices, a coffee lab, roasting facilities, on-site bakery, even a rum distillery. When my friend and I arrived, it was almost too much to take in: a merchandise corner in the front of the store, ample food and pastry offerings, wine and beer (and rum!), plenty of seating areas and an upstairs lab which holds free cupping events on the 1st and 3rd Fridays of every month.

So many options, but all I wanted was a coffee. I ordered a cortado (influenced, perhaps, from my afternoon coffee breaks on the Norte this past summer). This shot of espresso with a dash of hot milk was served in a clear glass cup and I savored every sip. I love La Colombe coffee, and I have for a long time. It’s my go-to coffee when I want to have something special on-hand at home; Corisca is my favorite blend for filter coffee, Nizza is the best for espresso.

La Colombe has been about the extent of my Philly coffee knowledge for as long as I’ve lived here, and I suppose it’s fitting that this is where I started the coffee tour. It’s an old favorite, so I’m curious if I’ll find a contender as I journey around the city, from coffee shop to coffee shop. La Colombe is going to be hard to top, but then again, there’s a lot of great coffee out there. Stay tuned for more!

How to adjust to life after a Camino (or any powerful, incredible experience)

October 19, 2014

As if I know how to answer that question. Yes, indeed, how do you adjust back to regular life after a powerful and altering experience?

I thought it wouldn’t be so hard. Before I left for the Camino, I was reading a lot of blogs from people who had walked, and something I noticed was that many people had trouble readjusting to regular life. I don’t think I’ll have a problem with that, I naively thought. I’m going to be so fired up about my experience that I’ll be able to make the changes I need to make. Or else, I’ll be so drained from all of the travel and movement and stimulation that I’ll want to come back home and just settle in.

I wanted to settle into my regular life for about a week. I cherished the early morning hours of lounging on my couch and nursing a cup of coffee. I loved seeing my friends and my family, I loved being able to cook for myself and eat lots of vegetables.

But then it got old. Fast. And all at once, about a week after I got home from my summer travels, I wanted to be back ‘out’ again. I wanted to be anywhere: on another Camino, traveling through Africa, exploring more of Europe, hunkering down in a small Spanish town and meeting the locals and learning the language. I wanted to hop in my car and take a cross-country road trip through the US, something I’ve dreamed of since I was 16. I wanted to spend a month on the coast of Maine, I wanted to spend a month crashing at my best friend’s place in Virginia.

I wanted to keep experiencing things. I wanted to keep experiencing life.

It’s a little over two months since I’ve returned home and I’m slowly getting used to this regular life, again. The intensity of the Camino has begun to fade a little at the edges, it’s no longer the first thing I think of when I wake up in the mornings. The seasons have changed and I’m accepting that I’m here, and no longer in Spain. When I first came home and strapped on my pack to go on a hike, I was frustrated that I couldn’t summon up my Camino feelings. What am I doing wrong? I thought. I have my pack, I have my shoes, I’m hiking through the woods, why can’t I feel like I did on the Camino?

Because real life isn’t the Camino. It’s taken time, but now when I put on my pack and go on a hike, I enjoy the hours for what they are: a hike through the woods of a nearby park. It’s easier, in some ways, to be more content with where I am; the incredibly restless feeling that I had in August and most of September isn’t so present.

And yet, I can’t just come back to life as if I never walked the Camino. I had that experience, and it affected me. So… now what?

Over and over I think about the words I heard repeated so many times during the last few weeks of my pilgrimage: “Your Camino begins when the walking ends.” And for me, this is, I think, where I’ve finally encountered my biggest challenge. I loved my Camino so much, and as I think I said once before, in some ways it felt like the easiest and most natural thing I’d ever done. I knew, without a doubt, that it was the best decision I could have made for myself this past summer. I was happy and filled and energized. I was pushing myself and getting out of my comfort zone, I was examining the lessons that the Camino was giving me, I was thinking about where I wanted to take my life when I got home.

Here were some of my thoughts- when I was on the Camino- about what post-Camino life would look like:

I’m going to go on dates, all of the time! It won’t be nearly as scary or as awkward as I fear it will be! (How many times on the Camino did I have a coffee or a lunch or a drink or a dinner with a good looking European man? These guys just appeared out of nowhere, and it was such a confidence booster to know that I could socialize in this way. But now that I’m home? Where are all the good looking European men?? Why do I suddenly feel so awkward again??).

I’m going to be active, and do so much more! Join clubs and groups, go out to bars and restaurants, meet new people everyday! (The Camino makes you believe that, like dating, this could be possible and so easy. Because on the Camino, meeting new people everyday is easy. In real life, this takes effort. A lot of effort).

I’m going to write a book! (I knew this with certainty on my third day of walking. I still know this and believe this, but now that I’m here, needing to sit down and actually write, I’m faced with the obvious but very real truth: writing a book is hard, hard work).

So here’s the thing: I know that accomplishing anything- dating and falling in love, making new friends, writing a book- it takes a lot of hard work and dedication. The Camino, if you let it, teaches this to you better than anything: I walked 500 miles across a country this summer. It still feels incredible to write that. Is it true? I really walked 500 miles?

I did. Each day I had to put in the work and the effort. I knew that I couldn’t get it all done in a day, or a week. It required time, and work, and sweat, and tears, and pain. I think that maybe anything worth it in life requires these things. So this is what is filling my mind these days: how to sit down and take the first steps with the next big thing in my life. How to live in the moment and let go of the endless planning and the worry and just take a risk and go for it. How to put in the daily steps even though the ultimate destination is still very, very far away.

I did it on the Camino, and completing the Camino is proof- if I need it- that I can accomplish something big.

So, how do I adjust back to normal life after the Camino? I’m not sure yet. Some days are great and fun and I love my routines and my home and my community; I love watching the falling leaves and grabbing a drink at Starbucks and cooking in my old and quirky kitchen. But some days my mind is filled with what comes next. I feel like I’m back in St Jean Pied de Port, holding my newly purchased walking stick that doesn’t feel comfortable in my hand just yet; standing in the middle of the street in the town and looking out into the distance and wondering if I’m going to be able to complete this journey.

Here’s to first steps: scary and hard, but absolutely worth it.

Endless coffee, top bunks, and delirium; 7 things I miss about the Camino

September 29, 2014

Today is National Coffee Day, and as I sit here in my apartment, listening to the rain, I think about all that great coffee I drank in Spain. And that gets me thinking about the Camino, and the walking and the people and the food and the conversation and all of the things that I miss. So here are a few things that come to mind:

1. Giving myself permission to drink as much coffee and wine as I liked.

Was there anything better than multiple café con leches or the 1-euro glass of (really, really good) wine? Sometimes an entire bottle of wine was only 2 euros. I could sit and drink coffee and write in my journal, I could sit and sip wine and talk with new friends, and I could do this every single day.

2. Spending my days outside.

It just felt so healthy: the cool, fresh air of the morning. The sunshine on the back of my legs. Walking through forests and vineyards and mountains. The sound of the wind blowing through a field of wheat.

3. The moment just after I finished doing my laundry.

One day I was hand washing my socks and underwear and t-shirt, and I turned to the person next to me and said, “This is my favorite part of the day!” This person stared at me and responded with, “Doing laundry? Are you crazy?”

“No,” I explained. “Just after this. When everything is finished. After those first kilometers when you haven’t had coffee, and the last kilometers when your legs feel like lead. After finding an albergue and showering and charging your phone and washing your clothes. Just after it’s all done, that feeling of complete relaxation and open time. You’ve done all of your work for the day, and it’s 2:00pm and you can eat and drink and meet up with friends or just do nothing. That’s my favorite time.”

4. An open church.

It was so easy for me to get caught up in all of the other stuff on the Camino: the physical aches and pains of the walking, the socialization and new friends, the changing Spanish countryside, the language and the culture, the nagging thoughts in my head. But when I passed a church, it was nearly always a reminder that I was on an ancient pilgrimage route. The churches connected me to a sense of the history of the Camino, and to my own personal pilgrimage.

When passing a church I usually tried to open the door to see if it was unlocked, and often it wasn’t. But that made the time when I could find an open church pretty special. I loved the little chapels, especially. So small and simple, with tiny details and still spaces. I loved when I could stand alone in an empty church- stand at the back and look up towards the altar, close my eyes and say a little prayer- and then quietly continue on my way. It always brought me a strong sense of peace.

5. A top bunk by an open window.

By the middle of my Camino, I started to get used to sleeping on the top bunk. I think my ratio of top to bottom bunks was 8:1, and at first this seemed like bad luck. But eventually I found my upside: sleeping by an open window. Sometimes this was purely chance. But whenever I got to an albergue on the early side and could choose a bed, I’d opt for a top bunk if there was a window close by. These were some of my best nights of sleep, when I could bundle into my sleeping bag, sometimes with a wool blanket stretched across the bed, and feel the cool night air blow in through the window. In one albergue I had a view of stars and a nearly full moon. In another, I could hear distant howling (and the next day someone mentioned that there were wolves in the hills, could this be true?)

6. Those hilariously delirious moments when you’ve simply been walking too long.

I think everyone had them. I kind of hope that everyone had them, and it wasn’t just me. Because usually by the last few hours of a really long, hot day, I could get a bit loopy. Once, I was walking with my friend Mirra and I looked ahead and exclaimed, “Look! A horse!” There was no horse. It was just another pilgrim, walking along.

There may or may not have been a time when I was walking alone down the very long, very straight, old Roman road under a very hot sun, looked around to make sure no one was within earshot, and shouted out, “Caesar!!” Just because he also walked down this road, a long time ago, and it seemed like I should somehow acknowledge it.

And there was definitely a time when I sang American Pie over and over and over because it was my 7th hour of walking on a hot day when I had lost my earbuds and all I wanted to do was listen to music. “Drove my chevy to the levee but the levee was dryyyyy…”

Caesar!!

7. Waking up every day and feeling like anything was possible.

I know that some people got a bit bogged down in the routine of the Camino, but for me, I felt like every day was full of possibility and surprises. This feeling increased after I lost my guidebook; I didn’t always know what the terrain would be like, if I would have to climb big hills, if I would pass through large towns. Where would I get my coffee? Who would I run into? Where would I stay at night? Would I make a new friend, would I have an inspiring conversation? Would I see a castle or a cathedral or a field of sunflowers or a long line of cows? When else in life do you get to ask yourself these kinds of questions?

All my bags are packed

August 8, 2013

On my last morning in Labastide, I headed up for one last trek to Le Roc, which had become “my spot”. As I hiked up the rocky trail past the church, I saw John coming down towards me (John and his wife Kerry are owners and hosts of La Muse). He slowed for only a few steps and said, simply, “It’s a perfect day.”

I got up to Le Roc and immediately understood what he meant: it was the clearest morning of my three weeks in Labastide. I could see far into the valley below me and beyond, to the clear outlines of the Pyrenees and their still snow capped peaks. For weeks, my eyes would strain and only make out hazy outlines of the Pyrenees; and now, suddenly, here they were. It felt like a message, but whether that message was “hello” or “goodbye” I’m not sure.

In any case, it was perfect. I had lots of perfect days in Labastide, and many in my last week. I intended to blog so much more while on my trip: funny and strange details about the people I interacted with, relearning and remembering how to speak French, my daily hiking adventures. And I still might tell those stories.

But for now, the end.

The day before I left, I woke up at 6am so I could hike to Le Roc to see the sunrise (even though the mountains blocked most of the view). I headed out of La Muse and Homer, John and Kerry’s dog, ran up to me. Normally, Homer would accompany residents on their hikes and walks, but at the beginning of our retreat Homer got sick, and his daily jaunts were restricted. For three weeks I would head out for a hike and Homer would stare at me with sad eyes, begging to come along.

I don’t know what he was doing outside so early, it was almost as if he was waiting for me. He bounded over, gave me a quick look, and then took off, sprinting, out of the village. He wasn’t missing this walk.

I headed towards Le Roc, with Homer leading the way. We made it up to my spot and sat together and watched the morning for awhile.

Homer at Le Roc

The rest of the day was a blur: lingering at lunch, a last hike, a pizza dinner with the entire group, starting a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle at 10pm. I woke up the next morning, not quite packed, not quite prepared to navigate Paris, not quite ready to leave. I sat on the terrace and ate my breakfast with Jean-Christophe and other residents filed in and out, everyone up earlier than normal that day.

I sat at Le Roc and stared at the Pyrenees for as long as I could, and then raced back to La Muse to throw things in my suitcase and write an entry in the guestbook and give away the extra food in my cupboard and say goodbye to La Muse and Labastide.

We drove away in the jeep, only Diane and I leaving that morning (Glenn and Julia came along for the ride and a trip to the grocery store; both had figured out a way to stay in Labastide for another week). As we drove away from the village, someone started singing, “All my bags are packed I’m ready to go, I’m standing here outside your door…” and we all joined in. It’s the slightly corny kind of thing you’d see in a movie, but for us, and in that moment, it worked. It was bittersweet and beautiful.

So many people who go to La Muse end up going back, and I understand why. Already, there was lots of talk about reuniting next summer. I think I knew, on my first day there, that I would want to go back, and that feeling only intensified throughout my stay.

But if I never make it back, it’s okay. It’s the kind of experience that stays with a person forever, and I got more out of it than I ever imagined I would.

Nadine at Le Roc, Labastide, France