Last night, after arriving in Irun, I walked about a mile to the Alcazar Irun Centro Ciudad.
This is an older property with lots of wood floors and wood paneling. I will be honest with you, I spent last night tossing and turning, beating myself up about giving the thieves at the bus station in Bilbao the opportunity to rob me. When morning finally arrived, I realized that yesterday is past and I have been granted a new day. I should let yesterday stay in the past, learn my lesson from yesterday and be grateful for the new day.
They do a little breakfast buffet at the hotel, which is a nice way to start the day. I had two slices of potato and cheese tortilla. This is a quiche that is the standard breakfast fare in Spain. I also had orange juice, fruit and a couple of croissants.
After I cleaned up, I set aside the clothes and gear I am going to take with me on the Way and packed everything else in my suitcase to mail to Ivar Rinke. Ivar runs the Camino Forum and has a business storing bags in Santiago. I brought clothes for touring around Ireland and I brought clothes for the Camino. The Camino clothes are all very light and made out of quick drying synthetic fabrics.
This is what I am packing for the Way.
From the top left, the black tube is an auxiliary power source for my phone. Next is a multiple port charging box. Next is a Tupperware container to hold all my electronic gear. On top of the lid of this Tupperware container is the St. Christopher prayer card that my sister California Karen sent me. In the second row, starting on the left is two spare batteries, a charging cord for my phone and a separate charging cord for my Fitbit. In the third row, starting on the left is a set of earbuds and a little bit of duct tape. You never know when you will need duct tape.
A micro fiber towel, a wash scrungie, a guide book and a pair of shoes to wear at the end of the day.
Five pairs of socks, probably too many socks, two pairs of underwear, bicycle gloves, bicycle sleeves and clothes pins my Mother gave me last year.
Gym shorts which I use as pajamas, hiking shorts and hiking pants.
Two short sleeve shirts.
One long sleeve shirt.
Energy bars and a spork.
A headlamp, spare batteries for the headlamp and spare rubber tips for my hiking poles.
These items are in my toiletry kit, vitamins, deodorant, bandaids and neosporin, chapstick, liquid soap, foot cream, sunscreen, nail clippers, a razor, a comb and a callous remover.
A sleep sack and a poncho.
I will also be carrying food and water as the bars and restaurants are few and far between on the Camino Del Norte.
I hope I have pared my clothes and gear down to the bare essentials and that my pack is not too heavy. We’ll see.
After breakfast I walked to the post office to mail my suitcase. The woman behind the counter did not speak a word of English and she did not understand a word of my Spanglish. She was upset that my suitcase was not in a box. Where was I supposed to get a box? Then she suggested I get a roll of Saran Wrap and wrap the suitcase in Saran Wrap. I tried to tell her that it was a suitcase, not half a cantaloupe I am going to put in the fridge. I spent fifteen minutes trying to convince her to fill out an address tag and mail the suitcase to Ivar, for goodness sake. Finally she relented and mailed the suitcase, although I got a long email from the post office in Spanish that I will need someone to translate.
After the post office situation was straightened out, I hope, I walked out to a shopping center on the edge of town to buy a poncho at the Decathlon sporting goods store. The rain jacket and pants I bought yesterday are too small and too flimsy.
This is a view of the hills surrounding Irun.
After I finished my shopping expedition, I had tapas for lunch, washed down with a grande Radler.
I don’t know what was in these tapas but they were good.
As I was walking back from the shopping center to my hotel a car with two middle aged French couples stopped me and asked me, in French, for directions to the shopping center. At first I thought this was a scam and they were planning to distract me and then steal my poncho. But they seemed very nice and I showed them on Google Maps how to get to the shopping center. The guy who was driving the car got out, hugged me, air kissed me on both cheeks and thanked me with a veritable torrent of merci beaucoups. You gotta love the French, except maybe in Paris.
These are Camino markers in Irun.
I had to buy food for Monday as all the stores will be closed on Sunday.
This is the grocery store. BM, what an unfortunate name for a grocery store.
This is dinner, a doner kebab plate. 
The kid who was running the restaurant, Hassan, was so nice. He translated the email from the post office and said that I was OK and that it was just a bureaucratic BS email acknowledging that I had mailed a package.
Did you know that Irun is in the Basque region of Spain. The Basque speak a separate language that is not derived from any other known language. The Basque want to separate from Spain and form their own country. Good luck with that.
That’s it for today. I hope everyone had a great Saturday.
Good evening from Irun, Spain.
AbeAndMarkontheCamino 