Day 1: Arrival in Madrid

Today we start our journeys: Tatiana from St. Petersburg, Zlatica from Povazska Bystrica, and Dasa and I from Banska Bystrica. I asked Dasa what she was most worried about and she said staying in the albergues. She is travelling to Santiago for the adventure and to see the other people and their perceptions of the journey. She's not sure what she is looking forward to.
Her rucksack weighs just over 6kg and mine too if we don't count food and water.
Pretty good packing.
We ate little plastic buckets of porridge that I had prepared for the train. Dasa said it tasted of rum though I hadn't added any.
We met up with Zlatica in Bratislava with her new Osprey rucksack and smart walking shoes from Japan. Her pack weighs between 7 and 8 kg.
Now we're on the plane to Madrid. We're all in different sections of the plane as I didn't want to give Ryanair any more money than necessary.
We're off.
When we landed in Madrid it was nearly midnight and still hot when we left the airport. We caught the hotel bus which was full of pilots and cabin crew. Tatiana met us in the hotel lobby and we had a celebratory drink in her room. Four women, three languages, one camino!