Day 3: Rolling Along

Day number 3 in Madrid. Today was one of the those days where we really had to roll right along with the punches because our plans for this trip shifted quite a bit. The day started with confusion concerning mass times. We then loaded onto the metro and headed over to the WYD offices to do a service project. I have to give a little back story before I begin to talk about mess-up of this day. We have been planning this trip for a year, and a big part of it was that we were going to do a service project of sorts. We had one planned in a hospital and another in a camp but both fell through. And then the opportunity to work in the World Youth Day offices came up. Unfortunately, it looks like we will not be able to serve at all on this trip. The World Youth Day planning committee is very unorganized and they were very overwhelmed by the size our group. They were also very disappointed that not all of us were bilingual.  So therefore we spent the rest of the day shopping. There is no use in hiding how disappointed I am that we can't do the service project, as I have been eagerly awaiting it for a year. However, I know that we will make the most out of the time that was supposed to spent in service. Despite the disappointment, the day was fun! We spent the whole day shopping. We went to a department store which was very Americanized and then headed over to Goya, an expensive shopping district where I of course got stopped by a security guard for shoplifting. Of course I didn't actually shoplift. What happened was, one of our Spanish friends, Marta, brought us into one of the most expensive shops on the street. Imagine $1,000 t-shirts and and other overly priced items. Just as I was fingering some 3 million euro necklace (or somewhere along those lines), with a saleslady closely watching me with mistrusting eyes, our chaperon announced that it was time to leave the store. As I casually started walking out the door the security alarm went off, and the saleslady swooped down on me as did the security guard standing by the door. There I was, an American Deer caught in the headlights, wishing that my mother had anticipated that I would somehow get caught into a situation like this and had taught how to say "I want to see my lawyer" in Spanish. She checked my bag, and of course my overly active imagination sent terrible scenarios running through my head that maybe something had fallen into my bag, and I began to wonder if they would send me to the American Embassy first and if not what were Spanish prisons like? Of course, all was well and my imagination was wrong, but from then on my purse set the alarm off in every single store. Figures. I had to explain in broken Spanish to each security guard that "mi bolso es loco." Anyways, the big, expensive stores were no mi gusta so Marta led us to "Los Hippies de Goya" who sold handmade goods out of booths in the middle of the streets. I got some awesome baggy pants that all the Spanish girls are wearing nowadays. We then hopped on the subway to go home for dinner and now bedtime!!!

Because I have no pictures in this post, I am going to include some Spanish pop music! This song is really popular in Spain right now, and it was played at all the WYD events. :-)