Day 2 of Project 2015

Le finished reading this book today and it had a few themes throughout that resonated with us. Yes, this is just a book, a fictional book at that. Le chose to read it because of the medical condition that was mentioned in it yet somehow we are able to take away some life lessons from it as well. This book reinforced and reconfirmed our thinking.

Without spoiling too much of the book, in case you plan to read it yourself one day, the character is forced (in an unpleasant way) to slow down her life and reevaluate what is important to her. A powerful and determined woman who put a lot of emphasis on her career that has to come to terms with not returning to the life she once knew.

Money, career and success is not everything! It does not make us happy, it does not define us and it certainly should not be at the sacrifice of everything else that we value and hold dear.

The book reminded us that it is essential to slow down and focus on what is meaningful in our lives. We have too often read books or watched movies, where an event (usually disastrous) is the catalyst for re-prioritising. These movies or books are wake-up calls to society yet how often do people just pass these off as entertainment? It is more than that, read between the lines and stop and reevaluate. It could be the sign you were waiting for.

Summary of January 2

Newbies

Today, we decided to walk to do our grocery shop. It isn’t how we normally do it but we figured that we had enough “walking” training on the Camino and that we would also save the environment by reducing our carbon footprint. We called it our “healthy” shop – not only because we squeezed in some exercise but we also bought less because we had to carry it home; no junk food or snacks or unnecessary items. 

Brighter/Different Perspective?

Would you believe after completing the original version of this post, we somehow managed to lose it all?! And instead of obscenities ($%^&$) being thrown around, we calmly opened a new post to re-write it best we could. We figured what we had written in the other post was not meant to see the light of day 🙂 So hope you enjoy the revised version instead! It also teaches us to hit “SAVE”. 

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running from the rain (not bulls) in pamplona

We have just returned to our room drenched from the rain and we laughed the entire way as we ran through the rain. We got caught out without an umbrella and the rain was just not letting up. 

As we stood under the restaurant shelter, waiting for the rain to stop, David reminded Le of a video that we saw on the internet recently! 

With that video in mind, we too decided to run in the rain 🙂 Hope you enjoy the video as much as did.

Here’s to a brighter perspective! Don’t let rain dampen your day! 

The Camino is beginning…

If anyone has ducked over to our travel blog, Wise Monkeys Abroad – then you will know that we are walking the Camino.

We are doing the Camino for several reasons, including raising awareness and money of Angelman Syndrome, for another travel experience and ticking off another UNESCO Heritage List.

But the main reason, the idea even came about was because we were ready to do some inner searching, both spiritually and personally. This played a huge part in us also trying to live our lives with a different perspective, hence this blog!

Anyway, as we embark on this pilgrimage and experience each day, we hope that we will be able to (subject to wifi) share our thoughts, reflections, experiences on this blog. This segment, will be our Camino Diaries series.

We think that for us to truly see the goodness and positivity of everything in our lives that we also need to challenge ourselves mentally, physically and emotionally. No better way than to walk 800km (rain, hail or shine). 800km of thinking, 800km of endurance, 800km of slowing life down!

In fact, we start the  pilgrimage this Friday, the 5th September, that is 3 sleeps away! So before we have even taken one step of the Camino, we have already experienced our first Camino story to share.

We are now in Bayonne, which is a town about 51km north of St Jean Pied de Port where our Camino will start.

With only a few days to go and after 7 weeks of travelling, we wanted somewhere to go that was close enough for us to unwind and mentally prepare.

The plan was that on Thursday, we would arrive in St Jean Pied de Port and pick up our Camino passport as well as our shells. Instead when we arrived in Bayonne, we visited the Cathedral of Bayonne. Inside, we met a man who provided us with the camino passports and shells. We sat and spoke to him for a brief moment when a lady came up and spoke to him in French. She handed him a handwritten note in an envelope and left.

The gentleman wound up our conversation with him and wished us well and as we got up to leave, he said to us, “Can I give you a mission?”

To which we both sat back down and nodded.

He said, “That lady just came over and explained that an Italian lady doing the Camino has had to stop due to injury but she would like this letter to go onwards to Santiago. Can you take it with you?”

“Of course!” 

We felt such a gush of emotion that the Camino for us, although 3 days away, was already starting! We cannot wait to see what lies ahead but as our purpose is to slow life down, we are going to take each step, one at a time, and just take each day as it comes for the good and the not-so-good.

But regardless, we will take the opportunity to really “see-the-day”.