Who knew I knew so many languages? Well, not really. Gallego is a dialect of Spanish, sort of a combo of Spainish & Portuguese, whereas I and anyone else from North & South America speak the dialect known as Catalan, thanks to the conquistadores who came from Andalucia.
Anyway, the other day, I heard some birds making a racket in a tree as I passed by. Sounded like parrots, but I don´t think they have wild parrots in Europe. Down the road comes hobbling a little old man, who saw me & asked if I spoke Gallego. No, senor, hablo un poco de espanol. Ah, catalan. Si Si. He pointed to the tree where the birds were still making a racket & said that he always laughs when he hears those birds, because they remind him of pilgrims. While we´re walking, apparently we are all very quiet, no talking, but when we hit a bar or albergue, yack yack yack yack yack, just like those birds. I had to agree with him, because it is true you can find the bar or albergue by following the racket. He then wished me a buen camino & since it was afternoon, I said Buenas tardes. Only to be corrected by him, because it was still time to say Buenos dias, as la tarde was, well, mas tarde.
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hi there, enjoying reading your camino stories but you've got it way wrong about the languages inthe the first paragraph. First of all Galician (galego/gallego) may sound like a mix of Spanish and Portuguese but it is a language in its own right. Secondly Catalan (also a proper language rather than a dialect of Spanish) is spoken in the north east of Spain, the lanaue brought to the Americias was Castellano (ie Spanish) the language of the centre and south of the country.
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