I went to Madrid
I'm back after my trip to Madrid. I went with my church's youth group for World Youth Day. Erick went with me too which was pretty great, I really liked sharing that with him.
So yeah I went to Madrid and it was HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT. I am seriously never taking water for granted ever again. People were dropping like flies in the heat. I saw a couple of people drop during the service.
There were 2 MILLION people in Madrid for World Youth Day, and there were so many countries represented. Lots of priests and nuns too. You knew they had to be boiling too as they were in their clergy outfits.There were these priests from France that were wearing their clergy robes and they looked like they were out of the Matrix, they looked really cool but oh man they had to be burning up in those. We also went to this awesome market, so much amazing food. I had the most delicious orange juice, bread, veggie paella and macarons. I could have seriously lived in this market! Coming back to England and their stupid food was kind of a bummer lol. Erick bought me some beautiful wooden flowers at the market too. Funny enough the previous week I was telling my mom I wanted flowers lol.
The service was nice but it rained! Erick and I made a tent but it still kind of sucked that it was raining. I had a hard time going to sleep since I'm not used to sleeping outside. He kept telling me "relax, just go to sleep" and I was like ugh its not that easy! The ground was pretty hard but eventually I did get to sleep. Our pastor was kind of annoying me though because he was puttering around till 3AM. x_x Being noisy ugh.
Anyhoo, we went to the Prado as well, and the Royal Palace, and the Plaza del Sol (some poor girl from a group from Minnesota got pickpocketed and we were trying to help her. Plaza del Sol is notorious for pickpockets.) We got tickets that entitled us to free meals in participating restaurants and they gave us a lot of food! And we got tickets to ride the subway for free. We saved a lot of money on that. Wow this was an amazing trip. I went to this amazing veggie restaurant and got the best falafel. I'm still mourning I cant get them anymore lol. I'd love to go to Madrid just for those!
I also had a lot of time to think about my life. I came to the realization a long time ago that I was in a rut and needed to get our of this dead end job and do something worthy of my skills. Putting merchandise onto a shop floor is not what I had in mind. I came to see that I was just doing this dangerous thing: going into a routine and staying put just to be comfortable. For someone who doesn't like wasting time, I've sure been doing a lot of it. That has to stop immediately. I can't spend my life in some job not worthy of my talents. I get no satisfaction from a job that a monkey could do.
I also thought about my attitude. I'm not going to blame the people at work even though they are without a doubt guilty of spreading negativity, I blame myself for being receptive to it. Every time someone complains about something, every time they talk about someone badly, what do I do? I listen. That's just as bad as doing it myself. Sometimes I do speak badly as well. I've realized how bad that sounds. It's like wow, do I sound like that? That's troubling.
I know some of you don't believe as I do and that's ok, but I think that everyone has time for self reflection regardless of religious belief. I don't think that self reflection and religious belief are mutually exclusive. But there is nothing good to come out of self reflection if you don't put it into action. That's my problem. I ponder things a lot but I come up with excuses as to why I can't do something. That's gotta stop too.
I think I should have done this long ago but better late than never. This week has been badly needed - I needed to clear my mind, get away from the internet and TVs (we didn't have either where we were staying - I didn't hear the big news about Libya this week!) and just relax. I didn't think about work once. Maybe I should take leave once a month and do something renewing like that. I mean, I earned the leave, I deserve to take it whenever I'd like.
I did many other things in Madrid and I took pics but I will have to post em this week at some point. I was pretty jet lagged when I came back and spent a lot of time just catching up on sleep and relaxing.
So yeah had a good time and I wish I was still there! lol.
So yeah I went to Madrid and it was HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT. I am seriously never taking water for granted ever again. People were dropping like flies in the heat. I saw a couple of people drop during the service.
There were 2 MILLION people in Madrid for World Youth Day, and there were so many countries represented. Lots of priests and nuns too. You knew they had to be boiling too as they were in their clergy outfits.There were these priests from France that were wearing their clergy robes and they looked like they were out of the Matrix, they looked really cool but oh man they had to be burning up in those. We also went to this awesome market, so much amazing food. I had the most delicious orange juice, bread, veggie paella and macarons. I could have seriously lived in this market! Coming back to England and their stupid food was kind of a bummer lol. Erick bought me some beautiful wooden flowers at the market too. Funny enough the previous week I was telling my mom I wanted flowers lol.
The service was nice but it rained! Erick and I made a tent but it still kind of sucked that it was raining. I had a hard time going to sleep since I'm not used to sleeping outside. He kept telling me "relax, just go to sleep" and I was like ugh its not that easy! The ground was pretty hard but eventually I did get to sleep. Our pastor was kind of annoying me though because he was puttering around till 3AM. x_x Being noisy ugh.
Anyhoo, we went to the Prado as well, and the Royal Palace, and the Plaza del Sol (some poor girl from a group from Minnesota got pickpocketed and we were trying to help her. Plaza del Sol is notorious for pickpockets.) We got tickets that entitled us to free meals in participating restaurants and they gave us a lot of food! And we got tickets to ride the subway for free. We saved a lot of money on that. Wow this was an amazing trip. I went to this amazing veggie restaurant and got the best falafel. I'm still mourning I cant get them anymore lol. I'd love to go to Madrid just for those!
I also had a lot of time to think about my life. I came to the realization a long time ago that I was in a rut and needed to get our of this dead end job and do something worthy of my skills. Putting merchandise onto a shop floor is not what I had in mind. I came to see that I was just doing this dangerous thing: going into a routine and staying put just to be comfortable. For someone who doesn't like wasting time, I've sure been doing a lot of it. That has to stop immediately. I can't spend my life in some job not worthy of my talents. I get no satisfaction from a job that a monkey could do.
I also thought about my attitude. I'm not going to blame the people at work even though they are without a doubt guilty of spreading negativity, I blame myself for being receptive to it. Every time someone complains about something, every time they talk about someone badly, what do I do? I listen. That's just as bad as doing it myself. Sometimes I do speak badly as well. I've realized how bad that sounds. It's like wow, do I sound like that? That's troubling.
I know some of you don't believe as I do and that's ok, but I think that everyone has time for self reflection regardless of religious belief. I don't think that self reflection and religious belief are mutually exclusive. But there is nothing good to come out of self reflection if you don't put it into action. That's my problem. I ponder things a lot but I come up with excuses as to why I can't do something. That's gotta stop too.
I think I should have done this long ago but better late than never. This week has been badly needed - I needed to clear my mind, get away from the internet and TVs (we didn't have either where we were staying - I didn't hear the big news about Libya this week!) and just relax. I didn't think about work once. Maybe I should take leave once a month and do something renewing like that. I mean, I earned the leave, I deserve to take it whenever I'd like.
I did many other things in Madrid and I took pics but I will have to post em this week at some point. I was pretty jet lagged when I came back and spent a lot of time just catching up on sleep and relaxing.
So yeah had a good time and I wish I was still there! lol.