It Feels Like Home To Me

Sofia and I took the bus back to Santiago this afternoon.  I had the wonderful feeling of recognizing streets as we drove in, and we didn't even need to pull out our old guidebook to find our way to our old albergue, the Seminario Menor.  We found a spot to camp behind a stone wall and under some eucalyptous trees, but we wanted to hang out inside (it is 15 degrees celsius outside) until we can pitch our tent under cover of darkness.  So.  The plan was to walk in unsuspicious-like with our packs on and head straight downstairs, where we know there to be a TV, showers, bathrooms, and perhaps a discarded book or two.  If we were stopped, we'd say we had plans for the night, but just needed to keep warm in the meantime.

We walked in and made a beeline for the stairs, only Sofia broke ranks and waved at the front desk guy (apparently it was made unavoidable by eye contact).  He called out, "van den Berg!", which echoed in the marble foyer and stopped us in our tracks.  We couldn't help grinning as we made our way to the office, feeling slightly delinquent. 

This front desk guy has been so good to us in the past.  We stayed at this albergue for three nights, and he learned our names and bed numbers on the first day!  He let us use the internet for free to see if conference would stream with audio and helped us figure out how to work the system by buying two and a half hour chunks of internet ahead of time to use when the office was closed.  THEN, on our last night in Santiago, when we were planning on camping to save money, he came down and checked on us as we were watching the last session of conference.  He asked us if we were staying another night, since he hadn't seen our names on the register, and when we told him that we were camping, he insisted on giving us free beds in the albergue.  It was wonderfully nice of him, and he conducted all this under-the-table business so matter-of-factly that we scarcely had a chance to say "muchos gracias"! 
So we wrote him a thank-you note and drew him a picture and left him a pass-along card.

Apparently, that won us his good graces, because this evening as we stood in the doorway of his office, he called me over by name and handed me a password for an unlimited amount of internet time, no questions asked!  "See you later," he said, as he briskly started helping the next pilgrim.