Starting our day!

Just had breakfast with the group! We all feel so much more rested and ready for what comes our way today. We are taking each thing we do step by step. We decided planning our day isn't that easy so i'm not even sure what we're gonna do yet! The adults have a meeting in a little so we'll be in the hotel room until then. I think we're actually going into downtown Madrid today. We were walking just outside of the main city in a place called Alcombendas yesterday, that's where our hotel is. It's extremely hard to understand anyone in this town because they only speak Spanish, but it's pretty fun attempting to speak it :)

A very tiring first day in Madrid

All of us can definately say we are absolutely exhausted! Once we got to the hotel, our rooms weren't ready so we had to wait for a good couple of hours in the lobby. So we played more Uno, and got some of the hotel's breakfast. Once we got to our rooms we unpacked and headed out to follow Christ the King Church from Belton so they could show us where the subway was. This walk turned into a good 30 minute long, hot and tiring trip. We had to find our way back by ourselves and it's safe to say we were pretty confused on how to get back. But we did it! We were then given a 2 hour time to go back to our rooms and just relax, and take naps. At 4:30pm we met back at the lobby and went out for lunch. We ended up at this pizza place. It's a good thing we have somewhat spanish speakers because none of the workers know English. On our way back we got our WYD backpacks with a bunch of different things in it! Once we got back to the hotel, we met up in the Butler's room and said our prayers. Now we are all off to bed after this long and tiring day. Even though it's only 8:45 here! Tomorrow starts our actually WYD events! All of the pictures I have I put on my facebook because it takes too long to post on here!
~Amanda
This picture is of the water they gave us at the pizza place!

Arrived in Madrid! :)

8-15-11

We are now in Madrid! After about 11 hours of traveling, we can finally say we’re here. It was very sad saying bye to family at the airport, but we’ll see them all very soon! On the first plane ride to Atlanta, they had assigned seating but we all switched up and got to sit by people we knew. That plane ride went by really fast. Emily, Lindsey, and I played what I call “boy scouts” but it’s better known as b.s. Then we played mad libs and the whole plane could probably hear us but that’s okay. When we got to Atlanta we got to ride this really cool tram thing to the other side of the airport. It was a 3 hour layover but it ended up just being an hour and a half of being in the airport because we boarded the plane super early! While we were at the airport, we met this guy named Lincoln, he was from Ohio. He played Uno with all of us! Before we knew it, we boarded our plane which was HUGE. It had 3 different sections and 3 columns. Each person had their own t.v and headset and we got to choose a variety of movies, and there was actually a really good selection. You could also play games, or make your own playlist with the hundreds of different songs they had. So it was great, it definitely helped the ride go faster. They also served us dinner, which was surprisingly really good! It was either chicken or pasta with a bunch of other sides. So I got pasta which was like the best pasta I’ve ever had in my life. After lots of switching again we got to sit by a person we knew which was great. The person on the other side of me actually was from Pflugerville too! What are the odds of that! He graduated from HHS several years ago but it was still cool! The time change was really confusing and when we boarded the plane at 6pm Texas time, it was 1am in Madrid. Meaning we needed to get some sleep ASAP. Unfortunately with many attempts, very few of us were capable of actually falling asleep. At one point almost all of us WYD kids got up and met by the bathrooms and just talked for a good 20 minutes and got to meet other people. It was definitely long but we’re so glad to finally be here and we can’t wait for the WYD festivities to begin.

Tomorrow morning

Well tonight is our last night. We'll be boarding our plane in Austin to Atlanta tomorrow morning. We should arrive in Atlanta at around 4:00pm. At around 7pm we should be leaving Atlanta for Madrid and get there hopefully at 9:40am on the 15th. We are all very excited and can't wait to experience this life changing opportunity! I pray that the hotel's website is truthful when they say that they have free Wifi. If not, then it will be obvious when I have no posts, but hopefully that won't happen! Our hotel looks like it's absolutely beautiful! Here's a picture of it:

Thanks, and continue to keep checking back for more! And please keep us in your prayers throughout our nine day pilgrimage. :)

~Amanda

P.S please don't call or text us while we're gone. It will cost us money :/

Final Meeting

Our World Youth Day Family!