Plaza del la Compania

Pamplona must have had a massive injection for Easter, and/or they're doing something really right because for a town of ~200k the streets were FULL. I had an idea of a dinner spot but after walking past many absolutely heaving pintxos bars to get there and finding it very quiet indeed, I saw the red flag for what it was and abandoned the ship.

Pintxos culture is great, especially for people like me that rarely want a meal, rather eight bites of disparate things (aka girl dinner). It took a bit of standing back and watching to figure out how though. Bars were overflowing into the street, glasses and plates balanced on bins and bollards and bike seats. It was a bit like trying to board an greased elephant doing cartwheels, but I eventually bobbed up out of the swell clutching a beer and something fried, and sat in the gutter with my trophies.

Sliding a few doors down in search of a new one, I saw Nicole and a few others I recognised but didn't know, and went and joined them. After a while the others peeled off leaving me, Nicole and Charles, an Irish secondary school teacher with incredibly round eyes and a Czech husband he was clearly missing. Charles stood quite strongly opposed to questions like where are you from, so instead asked me if I'd rather be invisible or able to fly. He was absolutely delighted with my answer, and satisfied that it had given him a far greater insight to my character than something an accent gives up anyway.

On a very circuitous wander back to the albergue we tossed around a few more would you rathers, and were having such a nice time we decided we'd have just one more at a bar in sight of the doors, so we wouldn't get lost again and miss curfew (they are really serious about the lock outs).

In the way that you feel freedom to do with strangers, particularly pilgrims, where simply knowing each of us is doing this is an act of intimacy, we capped the night off with vulnerable and honest conversation about referendums, love, and the human spirit. The gift Charles gave that will stick with me is the apparently Irish saying 'what's for you won't pass you'. Cheers.Read more