World Youth Day

Life has been full the last couple of months - especially for Elena. I will do my best to update. The end of July had Elena on a pilgrimage trip with our local youth group to Colorado. During this trip the youth leader introduced the kids to Blessed Pierre Giorgio Frassati, and Elena came back very excited about his inspiring story (more on that later). She got home and almost immediately left for Camp Beloved. After that she had one day at home before we took off for World Youth Day in Portugal!

During the few weeks leading up to leaving, we were frantically trying to figure out a way to rush Elena's passport even faster than the expedited service, which was predicted to arrive a couple of weeks after our flights. In the end, we called the senator, and had the passport a miraculous 2 weeks before our departure - who knew senators did that? I didn't! Thank you, internet. 

We went with family friends (and father-daughter duo), Dan and Ana. We had a great time. Dan was a super-planner who got us where we needed to go the whole week - or close enough when the crowds prevented us from going any further. My Spanish proved to be incredibly useful in Portugal. Between that and a month of Duolingo basics, I could get my point across and communicate enough to get by without trouble. The girls brought along their youthful enthusiasm for exploring a new country and meeting people from all over the world. 

Words really can't describe the experience so I will share a few pictures.

For starters, the accommodations were an experience all by themselves. We slept on the floor of a classroom. The toilets had no seats (quite common actually in Portugal), toilet paper had to go in the garbage instead of the toilet (harder to remember that you would think!), and I awoke the first night to find a cockroach crawling on my arm. I just killed it, said a prayer of thanks that it was me and not Ana, and went back to sleep. I kept that bit of information to myself until we were at the airport leaving Portugal so the Ana could sleep at night. Elena was unfazed when I told her. 

The biggest surprise was the shower situation. A line of hose-water shower heads in a very not-well-secluded area. The men's was on the left, the women's on the right, with a walkway going right past it. Apparently people who have been to WYD before neglected to tell us that we should bring swimsuits for the showers! (And of course our last day in Portugal we happened to stop at a nearby mall and found swimsuits on clearance for $1. Too late!) The cold water would have been nice during the HOT days, but we weren't there during the day plus we decided it would be better to shower when it was dark out given the situation. They did very soon close the gap for the doorways and added a make-shift door using garbage bags once they realized not everyone was comfortable with the set-up. 

Despite all of this, by the end of the week we were really quite fond of our home base (an elementary school) and the lovely people there who took care of us. At one point they even said we would be moved to a new location (because of the cockroaches) and we were really bummed. In the end they let us choose to stay or be moved and we happily stayed. 

Meeting friends from around the world and getting their hats signed. 

Navarre Beach

I suggested a goofy picture and then failed to pose in time. Oops.

Our rickety elevator at the airbnb in Madrid. There was a chance we would get stuck if it had too much weight, but the room was on the 6th story so it was a tough call. Look closely and you can see Elena and Ana peeking out.

The birthplace of St. Teresa of Avila

Sangria in Spain!

The outdoor restaurants in Spain had an amazing solution to beat the heat. The canopies sprayed mist every 30 seconds or so to cool the air (like the kind that mist produce in the grocery store)!

I assume they were aiming for "tasty seafood sauce."

I ordered a small coffee, forgetting the difference between America's idea of small vs. Europe.

The biggest highlight, of course was seeing the Pope. We arrived at his welcome ceremony almost 2 hours early to try to get a good spot. By the time we got there the crowd was so big, we could not even get into the designated seating areas so we just sat outside a fence as close as we could get. Soon, the fence was being lined on the other side by security and we started to suspect the Pope might drive right by us, and he did! We never dreamed we'd get so close.

We went to a talk by Chris Stefanick and Jason Evert. Having learned our lesson to arrive early, we got there very early and waited in the sun for a couple of hours. There were still 1,000 people outside who wanted to get in, but couldn't so we were lucky. As we were waiting for the talk, we noticed a line and discovered it was a line to see the relics of Blessed Pierre Giorgio Frassati (mentioned earlier) and St. John Paul II. The girls got at the end of the line, and just as it was their turn, a woman got up and said they would have to cut it short and end the line. Fortunately another volunteer there noticed that there were only 4 people left so they let the girls and the 2 others go through. This is a picture of the girls getting the chance to tough Blessed Frassati's pick axe.

Meeting Chris Stefanick

This is one of my favorite memories. As we were walking to the final vigil and Mass in 100 degree weather, locals came to their windows with buckets of water, dumping it on pilgrims who wanted to cool down. We did not take them up on the offer, but little did we know at this point that our walk was still another 4 hours to go in an incredibly large crowd (and no bathrooms)! Plus we were carrying all of our stuff so needless to say it was a real pilgrimage experience for us. 

 

These were our sleeping arrangements once we finally arrived. Did I mention it was hot? Because it was very hot. We were a good mile from the main stage, but we could see the screen anyway. The next day we assumed leaving would be easier, thinking they would allow people to leave in all directions, but they did not. Everyone leaving had to take the same road, which is a lot to ask of a crowd of over 1 million people. Again no shade and again several hours of walking. There was one single port-a-potty on the side of the road along the way, but everyone was so dehydrated no one even used it. We tried stopping to rest occasionally, but doing so only prolonged the heat exposure so we just kept going until we finally got to a park with some shade where we rested for 30 minutes before heading to the airport - also a challenge because of how hard it was to get a ride with the crowds. 

Paella in Spain! It was not the best, but it did the job. Unfortunately we struggled finding restaurants that were not targeted for tourists and it showed in the quality of food. We learned in Avila to go to a restaurant that did not have it's menu posted and was not trying to attract tourists. We had our best and cheapest meal there. The service was terrible, but it was well worth it!