We took the high speed RNFE train into Madrid, the ride was short and comfortable. Perhaps because it was a high speed train, it was much more spacious than other trains.
There was a bit of adventure actually in the morning of our departure. Due to the distance to the train station, we had decided to catch a taxi to the train station from a hotel nearby. However as we left a little later and took a wrong turn to the hotel, it took us much longer than expected to get to the taxi. By the time we arrived at the train station, the train was about 5min from departure. We had a made rush to the train track. We were the last to board, the train door closed on us as soon as we all got on and started moving! The closest call we have had on our trip so far!
After arriving we took the metro to our accommodation. Metro in Madrid is well connected through the central city. 1.50 euro per trip.
Look, we are here!
Once we got to our accommodation we found another bunch of pilgrims from Washington State USA, waiting to be checked into the rooms.
They were actually separated into two buildings due to unavailable rooms. The manager if the apartment asked I we were willing to swap for two apartments instead of one so that they can have our one. Of cause we agreed, two apartments is always better than one!
Our apartments are very spacious with air conditioning! Check it out! These photos was actually taken from a later date, that is why you will see Tiffany in the photo, she hasn't actually arrived yet!
We had a little dilemma as Sister Helen who looks after all NZ pilgrim registrations has our registration certificate as we left so much earlier. She does not arrive until Monday, two days later. According to our information the certificate confirms us as pilgrims and will allow us to collect our pilgrim passes, the passes will give us entry to events, transport and food.
We decided to give it a go anyway and headed to the English hub for more information. Another blocked our way, the English hub is not open until Tuesday! Lucky for us, we bumped into a working JMJ group, the priest and a lady spoke a little English and pointed us to the Cathedral for more information.
Right, not a problem! We found a bar to have a tapas bocadillo before heading out to the central city to the Cathedral.
I had this beautiful smoke salmon and cream cheese sandwich. Look at the thickness of the salmon! You would never see something like that in a store brought sandwich in NZ!
We thought it will be quite simple to find the way because as soon as we got out of the station we can see quite a few groups of cheerful pilgrims heading towards one location, turns out we were wrong in this little deduction, we had to ask quite a few people before we found our way there.
Here comes the twist in our journey, turns out the registration office is in fact not at the cathedral or in the central city, it was closer to the airport nearly to the edge of the city. Although it was a bit of running around, at least we have finally found the right direction.
One final train ride and we are at the registration office!
Most of the people here are young people who have volunteered to assist in this WYD, there are so many cheerful faces receiving us I felt finally, I have found a home in our Catholic Church in Madrid.
We managed to get the registration sorted as all that was required was our group ID and the group leader's passport.
Finally we had ourselves sorted after 6pm. What a long day.
We decided to go to the supermarket to buy some food, cook dinner and have a bit of a rest.
The supermarket we visited was The Corte Ingles, one of the main sponsors to the WYD event. I found this place a bit more expensive than other supermarket in other cities, perhaps things are more expensive in the capital.
This is a shot of the content of the backpack we collected.
Yes, JMJ 2011 is about to begin!
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Location:Calle de los Estudios,Madrid,Spain
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