Reading, reading, reading

In one of the first posts I made you a promise that I will come back to a more educational part of the preparation for the pilgrimage. Apart from the technical / regular organisational aspects and the physical training I was also reading social media sources and books written by pilgrims. It is more than informative that I mention it here since what I had read before setting off had inevitably influenced my own perspective. Even if I made every effort to be as impartial as possible. And I did. The list is limited here to the most important sources since listing all of those I consulted in some way would make this post one long and possibly not that captivating list of raw data. The social media sources are all to your left in a recommended blogs section. Among others, you will find there The Solitary Walker or Amawalker blogs. As for books, there are more than enough out there published on the topic. Below several of them that have been useful and informative to me, in an alphabetical order:

• Elizabeth Gilbert; Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
• Fernando Morais; Paulo Coelho: A Warrior's Life: The Authorized Biography
• Gideon Lewis-Kraus; A Sense of Direction: Pilgrimage for the Restless and the Hopeful
• Paulo Coelho; The Pilgrimage
• Shirley MacLaine; The Camino: A Journey of the Spirit
• Zeno Howiacki; Moje Camino. Dziennik uczuć prowadzony w drodze do Santiago de Compostella

Enjoy the reading!

Another topic – on 7^th January: http://lourdes-pyrenees-camino-de-santiago.blogspot.com/2014/01/photo-gallery-and-contest.html 

I announced a contest. Unfortunately, none of the questions and messages I received has been interesting enough to publish it here, together with my reply, so this time additional photos will have to wait for another chance.

PS. This post completes the content I intended to publish here as a partial fulfilment of the commitments I have undertaken in the application for a Lord Rootes Memorial Fund award. This does not mean that I will not continue publishing new posts. It simply translates into my fulfilling the said commitments.

PS.2 Funny thing, although it has been almost three months since I walked the streets of Santiago de Compostela, I have just been reminded one of the lessons I have learnt there. Reading about the balance between technology, social media, online life, the Internet and what many call “real life”, I came across a paragraph stating that it is invaluable to focus on the present moment from time to time. The present moment, the place you are in and the people surrounding you. Completely agree. During the pilgrimage I experience the beauty of looking at the world around you and seeing that world. Try do that every now and then. :)