Return to Caceres and Easter Weekend

NOTE: This is the final post from my Spring Break adventures. I recommend that you go to the post called When in Rome and then read the ones above until you get to this one. There are 7 posts total because there is so much to say!

The bus we rode to Madrid was extremely small and there was hardly any room for our legs because the people in front of us put their seats back all the way. It was bad. I felt very claustrophobic...not enough room to breathe even with our seats back too! Thank goodnes for the Melotonin that Aunt Mary gave me to bring with. It is 2 months expired but still does the trick! I slept some on the bus but tossed and turned a lot trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in.

We got to Madrid at 5:45am and waited for the metro to open at 6am to go to the other bus station. We got there and had to wait until 8am for our next bus to leave. We got some breakfast. On our second bus, we all slept for the first 2 hours. There was so much more room and we each took 2 seats because there were extra. We met a very funny guy named Martin who was from Austria and was coming to Caceres to visit his girlfriend and meet her family. He was concerned about "keeping his legs" because her dad had threatened him that he would cut off his legs if he did something wrong haha. He said some very funny things about soccer and I wish I could remember his quotes. He also gave us Austrian chocolate! We got to Caceres around 12pm and were so tired that we decided to take a taxi home instead of walking in the rain. So lazy of us, but it only cost like 1.5 euros so whatever! When I got back, I told my host family about my trip and talked to my parents on Skype. Changed my plane ticket to May 5.

Friday night, I went to Good Friday service at Guadalupe. It was a very very good Mass! The homily was good and it was about each of us carrying our own cross in our lives, just like Jesus carried his cross. They did pretty much everything the same as we do in the US on Good Friday.

On Saturday, I went shopping with Casey to the mall and then to the downtown stores. I bought some scarves to bring home. We still need to make one more shopping trip before coming home. We went to La Caballeriza and met Courtney's mom, aunt, and sister before trying to go to a procession. However, the procession took forever to get to the Plaza Mayor, so Casey and I left before it got there to go to the Easter Vigil at Fatima. I was surprised at how few people were at the Easter Vigil. We started just like in the US-outside with a fire and candles. There were 4 baptisms-3 babies and 1 kid who was probably 8 years old or so. The priest annointed them with oil before baptising them and put very little water on their head to baptise them. I really missed singing "Jesus Christ is Risen Today" at the end. It lasted about 1.5 hours. They went really fast through everything!

This morning, I got up at 6:30am to go with Casey to the non-denominational church's Easter service on top of the mountain. We got a ride in a car to the top thankfully and got to see the sunrise. It was so cool! We listened to a reading, sang some praise and worship songs, and prayed a bit. Then, we went down the mountain and went to a cafe for breakfast. After, I came home and took a nap. At 12pm, there was another procession, so I went to the beginning of that and then went to Easter Mass at Fatima with Taylor and Clint. Once again, I was surprised at how few people there were at Easter Mass. I expected it to be packed like it is in the US for Easter. This afternoon, I did some homework and updated all of this on my blog. My host sister Maria left to go back to her university today, so I had to say goodbye since I won't see her again before I come back to the US. She is the one I will miss the most!