I have had to spend quite a bit of time in Bordeaux recently going from one appointment to another and whenever there was not a convenient tram, I walked -- ending up walking all over the city from one side to the other, and loving it. So, it was with great excitement that I noticed the bronze Camino shell in the pavements and the shell sign on the street names, and before long I was following the signs and walking the Camino all over again!
It is wonderful to know about something -- because then you recognise it when you see it. ...
- Well, that statement needs editing, doesn't it?
The official term is brand-recognition. For instance, when you have decided to buy a green car - because you know there are very few green cars on the road and want to be able to recognise and find(!) your car quickly in a large parking lot, and you are waiting for your car to arrive from the factory, you suddenly notice that every second car on the road is green! In other words, you may see an object every day but never notice it. Then, one day, someone talks about this object and you become aware of its existence. The very next time you walk past this object, you notice it immediately - as if it is the first time you have ever seen it.
Before I had walked the Camino de Santiago de Compostella and wrote a book about the experience, I had never noticed the many shell signs that are in villages, towns and cities all over Europe. Now that I have walked the 850 kilometres from St Jean Pied de Port to Santiago de Compostella and followed those shells laid in pavements and roads, in walls and posts, I suddenly started noticing them everywhere -- on fence posts, on street signs in cities, on signs outside churches and buildings. They were always there, but, probably because I never realised their significance, I never registered their existence!
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