WYD: Crammed subways, Riots

Just to give you a quick run down of what World Youth Days entailed, there were 2 million spirited Catholic youth from all over the world joined together in the city of Madrid. Normally when you think of a good, devout Catholic kid you think of children in private schools with pleated skirts and boys with khakis. That image was quickly banished when I walked onto a subway packed with screaming Portuguese boys all chanting. Don't get me wrong there were plenty of groups of students walking around in pleated skirts and full on private school attire. Some wore scarves and hats reminiscent of my outfit from Thieu Nhi Thanh Te [Vietnamese Catholic Youth Group similar to Boy Scouts but on Catholic steriods] back in middle school and elementary school. Herds of nuns wandered the streets in habits, and priests led big groups of youngsters from event to event. But upon closer inspection I noticed everyone had that sense of new age spunk.

Vietnamese Catechesis. Vietnamese youth from Norway, Sweden, Germany, France and a ton of other places came. (This picture was taken when it was half full). It was crazy to be around so many different people, yet be united by a Vietnamese language and culture.

Lisa and I went to a talk given by Christopher West on marriage. It was interesting. I think I enjoyed the sand artist more than the actual talk.

Crowded Subways and crazy kids with flags. We had to wait for 3 trains to pass one time because all the cars were filled to capacity.

Waiting to see the Pope arrive. Crowded streets, heat, and humidity made for some irritable Catholics.

Not everyone was pleased with the WYD. Riots broke out in Puerta del Sol and protestors were everywhere.  I can't say I didn't expect it. A man tried to argue with me on the subway after I took this picture, but unfortunately my Spanish wasn't good enough. I would've liked to talk to him about a few things.

French worship concert. Can't say I knew what they were saying, but their sign of the cross dance moves made it clear that they weren't dancing to French Ke$ha. 

Overall the experience was a fun one. The event wasn't as well organized as I would've hoped. We didn't get our packets with all of the information until a day into the conference, and apparently some groups had to wait 2-3 days for theirs. When we got a guide they only had them in Spanish. Thankfully we got by and were able to visit a few events. I'm really glad that Lisa and I got a few days in Madrid to ourselves because with WYD going on we didn't get much time to ourselves to go around and see Madrid as a city. 

My final night in Europe was spent sitting on the tiled floor outside of the sports center that we were staying at. I sat in a circle with two girls from Holland and a few of the kids from my Viet group and we talked and sang songs while I tried to teach one of the girls chords on the ukulele. You never know where life'll lead you.