Breakfast with Lisa & Josh #17

Welcome back to Breakfast with Lisa & Josh!

I think, as is typically the way with all things, that the moment we figure out how something works, or get mildly competent at it, we’re on to something new.

We’re 2 days away from the finish of the Camino de Santiago - I’m writing this right after waking up in our hotel in… what city are we in today? Hold on, lemme check… Arzua. That’s right. Hard to keep track on this.

It’s been 14-or-so days in a row of walking all day, having dinner, and sleeping. And that’s it. Not a lot of time (or energy) for anything else. Just walk, eat, sleep. The Camino is nothing if not a simple quest. The beauty of it, I think, is in the simplicity.

There’s just nothing to do all day but walk. Wake up at 7, pack the bags, grab a baguette 1 mile down the road, fill up the water, and then just walk. For 6-8 hours a day. The scenery sometimes changes, but more or less is the exact same during the entirety of your day. The boredom eventually morphs into ideas, which turn into thought rabbit-holes, which, upon resurfacing, turns back into boredom. Our brains are not particularily good at doing nothing, it turns out.

After an hour or two, the walking becomes automatic - you go on autopilot. Thoughts come and go, people pass by and you have short conversations usually ending within a minute or two, ending with the always present “Buen Camino” - both greeting and goodbye. And then, almost like magic, you arrive at your destination. 7 hours of walking went by in seemingly an instant, but at the same time at a snails pace. The duality of the Camino, I suppose.

I’ve had business ideas, and video ideas, and life ideas, and every other kind of idea during this thing. It feels like the walking is just priming the pump for my brain, and then getting to the hotel after a long day of walking is the relief valve for it - ideas just come flying out, usually so fast that if I don’t write them down immediately, they disappear - usually forever.

To be honest, before even starting this thing, we weren’t entirely certain why we were doing it, or what the experience would be like. And it’s safe to say that no matter what we would have expected, we would have been wrong. The saying that we’ve been hearing from many people is “The Camino Provides”. I think it’s more “The Camino giveth, and the Camino taketh away.” It requires sacrifice, and letting go, and you can’t possibly have a good time while walking it until you do so. What do you have to let go of? You’ll find out, but only after you’ve done a significant amount of walking.

However, if you’re biking it, it seems to be a fully different experience - one filled with fast days over long distances - a fun physical challenge all wrapped up in a early lunch, a late dinner, and lots of fun. We’re gonna do the cycling route next time, for sure.

The food is a big highlight too :)

Videos this week

We got the chance to go to the World’s Largest Beer Garden - the Hirschgarten in Munich. It really is massive - so big that it has it’s own collection of deer, seating for over 8,000 people, and an incredible selection of food. If you go to Munich, this is absolutely a must-do.

I think we’re starting to lean a bit more into the fact that we are budget travelers - and that our intention is to just travel for a long as possible. Budapest was absolutely perfect for us in that regard - so much to do there, and all at a very good price. A budget travelers dream.

What’s going on now?

Up next, post-Camino, we’re heading to Portugal (I mean it’s right next door - why not?) for a week, and then we need to head somewhere with good wifi for a long time to finish up our backlog of video editing and other work-stuff. We’ve been mostly ignoring all of that, primarily due to lack of energy, and we have a LOT to catch up on. Also, I think we’re long overdue for a rethink on how we make videos, and what kind of videos we want to make. We have some interesting ideas, and I think that with a bit of time spent on the process of video making, that we can really up our game for all of you.

So, that’s it for this week. More great videos coming soon!

See you next Sunday…ish :)

- josh (and lisa)

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