May 22

          On our second morning we woke up at 6am. Breakfast was served at 6:30am, so we packed our things and went to the breakfast room. I'm not really sure what was happening, since everyone was speaking in French, but they gave us some jam, toast and hot chocolate, so everything was alright. After the meal we headed for the path. It was raining, windy and freezing for most of the day. That part of the day wasn't fun, but the hike was. We had 25 km, or about 15 miles to go over the Pyrenese mountain range. We were originally planning to take the alternate route because of the weather, but it turned out to be clear enough and there were enough hikers around for us to take the main route safely.
          We passed lots of cows and ponies, some horses, a donkey, and a ton of slugs along the way. At about 8km we stopped at Refuge Auberge d'Orisson. It was a pretty cool place that looked like a log cabin. The guy who worked there was very nice, though he didn't speak English and I don't speak French, so we didn't have a proper conversation. There we ate some soup and bought some sandwiches to eat farther down the trail for lunch before venturing back out into the cold. This time we didn't stop until we reached Roncevaux. There was not another place to stop along the trail and the weather didn't permit us to sit down and take a break beside the trail. It was probably a bad idea not to stop, but there really wasn't a good place. We got out our sandwiches and ate them as we walked in the rain. They were really good and I wished I had gotten a second one to eat during our walk. We crossed over the top of the Pyrenese in a cloud of fog. I am still not certain of what the view from the top looks like.
          We reached Roncevaux at about 2:45pm with two other pilgrims. The pilgrim office was closed when we arrived, so we didn't know where we should go until another pilgrim walked by and pointed us towards a place with beds and hot showers. We got our passports stamped at the Albergue de Peregrinos, then found our beds where we would spend the night. This Albergue was huge. It had about one hundred beds divided into groups of four and put into cubicles. Caleb and I shared our cubicle with a French guy and a man who I think was from Japan. I headed straight for the showers, which had real hot water! As opposed to fake hot water, as you probably guessed. Caleb was asleep when I got back to our cubicle, so I spent some time reading.
        When he woke up we went to find dinner, but the restaurant didn't open until 7pm, so we had some time to kill. We decided to explore the world of Albergue laundry washing. Very exciting, I know. We washed our clothes in the sink, then put them in the spinner, and finally hung them up to dry. We went to check out the vending machines while we waited. It didn't like my money, but decided to give Caleb three chocolate croissants instead of one. I decided to take that as an apology. Then we went to the pilgrim's dinner. It turned out to be soup, fish and chips and yogurt. A man from Holland named Hans sat with us for dinner. He thought we were the people he had walked into town with, but stayed anyway when he realized we weren't. He was pretty interesting and had waked all the way from Holland. I would have liked to listen closer, but I got distracted when my fish's eyeball fell out and started rollong around in my fries. I had never eaten a fish with its head still on before (that I can remember, at least) and I didn't know that fish eyes were fond of hide and seek or the proper ettiquete for removing from one's chips.
         Anywho... After dinner we headed back to the Albergue for the night and did nothing else interesting. (Written May 22)