Home with A Story to Tell and Photos to Prove it

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/sharing/shareRedirectSwitchBoard.jsp?token=182708604905%3A1477144843&sourceId=533754321803&cm_mmc=eMail-_-Share-_-Photos-_-Sharee

Here's the link i promised :)

Kim

I can't believe we have been home for 3 days. It feels like spain was a dream. A fantastic week of spending time with God and some amazing young people.

They were awesome in ways that you cannot begin to understand, and words can not do justice to their sense of humor, joy and exploration in a country that was foriegn in so many ways.

God truly worked mysteriously during this pilgrimage.

Now I can tell you about Thomas' transformation and Warren traveling with us in "Flat Stanly" form. Now I can tell you about my sister's diagnosis of a brain tumor the day before we left and the finding that it is benign and that she will have surgery to remove it in August. Now I can tell you that prayer works in physical, spiritual and emotional ways that we cannot understand or express fully. To know the power of prayer is to see the power of prayer in action.

During one of our discussions during the week we asked if anyone had seen a miracle? Nearly everyone in the group had. with out blinking an eye, I was privileged to know that.

I am putting up my link to my kodak gallery because I know you only want to see the pictures anyway.

You can print them or share them however you'd like.

Thank you for being so supportive of our adventure, of our journey, and of our prayer life.

Kim

We aren't in Santiago any more Toto

Its very tangible the difference between Santiago and Madrid. it's hotter, dryer and less green. It's also much more commercial - although we probably went into the same amount of shops, there was less shopping in Santiago.

Today we went to the Prado Museum, and we saw some of the major sights of Madrid. We had a half day tour with a guide and we spent about 2.5 hours looking at the paintings of Goya, Valaques, El Greco and the Flemish Painters. Some of the paintings were so realistic while others were as our guide said "pornographic" The work in the Prado is only from one period of Spanish history, the rest of the arts collected by the royal family are in other museos around the city.

The youth weren't so thrilled with the tour, but they were very good about being patient through the museum. We then went to the Plaza Mayor for Lunch followed by shopping for regalos ( souveniers) and chocolate con churros. After that afternoon snack we came back to the hotel, where Kyndra, Fr Cal, Kim and Thomas planned a group eucharist, which will start in about 10 minutes. After the Holy Meal we will be going to our final dinner in Espana, coming back to pack then having compline before heading back to the States tomorrow.

I will try to post the reflections about the week collected during the eucharist with the youth's permission and post these upon our return. This will be my last post from Spain. We will be leaving at 6 am local time tomorrow - 12 midnight EST from the Hotel, catching a flight to Frankfurt, then going to Philadelphia where we will arrive approximately 3 hours after we left. The longest 3 hours of our lives.

We are anxiously waiting to see all of you at the Church when we return.

Muchas Gracias por su ayuda planiado este pelegrino

Thank you so much for your help planning this pilgrimage.

Los Pelegrinos

We aren't in Santiago any more Toto

Abuelo - Grandfather ... Roasting Calvin Today

Today we've been traveling most of the day. More than half the time was spent in the Airport, on the plane or in the metro. It's been a long day, but funny at the same time.

With out much to report as far as pilgrimage goe

s we have decided to dedicate this blog to our fearless Padre Vaca- AKA Father Cow, The Cannon Wrecker of All Douglassville, Calvin C. Ad

ams esquire.

The day began with a famous Calvin Quote directed at Lucy and Amanda - " Wakey Wakey Eggs and Bakey" - after which Lucy promptly returned to bed and slept until a second wake up call. :) It's fine we all slept in today. (We probably could have slept in more as our flight didn't actually leave Santiago until nearly 1 pm and our flight's gate didn't open until 11 am despite getting to the airport at 10) Father Cal, assured us all that " This was all part of the adventure".

He made a new friend with Patricia, our guide to the airp

ort, he and she shared coffee, and he told her all about Santiago and our experiences with our guide yesterday Joaquin.

After we got through securidad- Kynd

ra and he worked on an evening prayer that we didn't actually get to pray, but tomorrow we will be having an evening mass, which will require the help of Thomas, Kyndra and myself which will undoubtedly be some kind of production. We waite

d, and paced, and we ate some little munchies in the terminal.

By the time we got to the Madrid airport we realised that since Calvin has the most items to remove, between his coat, his belt, his fully laced sneakers, his hat and his electronics, that in the future he needs to go through security first- not last. We all waited on him while

he talked and tried to tie his shoes at the same time.

When we got checked into the hotel it was 3:30 and we had an hour before Iraida would be here to meet pick us up for dinner. We had enough time to shower and change before she arrived, and as usual Father Cal was the last to a

rrive, in a bright yellow polo which could be seen from outer space.

Iraida verged on sainthood as Cal attempted Spanish and lectured on the finer points of Portuguese and Italian. She was the champ of the teenage stare while he talked at her. It was good work.

After we arrived at the metro station we needed to wait for the Castro family to pick us up in their caravan of cars. While waiting Cal meditated on the possibility of becoming Islamic in his retirement, and we wrapped his head in a scarf, truly to keep the sun off his fair sk

Upon arriving at the Casa de Castro, Cal entertained Mama (Elena) with his half spanish, half portugese, half italian, half english all Calvin language. She smiledinned head, but it made for an interesting photo opportunity none the less.

and laughed and kept the food and coffee coming. Some major points of the conversation included:

• Fr Cal's love of the cheap yellow mustard
• Having Collin point at his head and spell the abbreviation for Mountain
• Calling Iraida's eldest sister Carolita, Carololita
• Taking up the invitation to come back when ever we are in Spain, in earnest, he might be back next week
• Fr Cal loves the hospitality of visiting someone's home. He spoke of this for a good 30 minutes as we were trying to leave, gracefully.

There are so many Cal- isms that I can't begin to list them all here, but trust there are stories to tell before we sleep so if you ever want to laugh let us know and we have at least a handful of stories to share. Including his learning how to play the "glass" and stealing the seat in the back of the bus.

(as a side note to all your parents out there reading this, Sally Heist lent me a book to read on the trip by Mitch Albom called "A Little Faith" I highly recommend you read this book and when you do Thank God that your teenager knows and loves Fr. Cal. in a way that most people in their teen years do not have the opportunity to. I know that this transition into retirement will not be an easy one for him or for us, but trust that this relationship is unique and they will always have a concept of what a man of God, is meant to be- flawed and fabulous- as mo

deled in Fr Calvin C. Adams)

Somethings are Just Lost in Translation

Today we had a tour of Santiago de Campostela with Joaquin again. He was hillarious, there were some things that just didn't make sense with his translation which we just had to laugh about. Here are some of the Joaquin-isms that made all of us laugh (not to his face but at dinner this evening)

• Landscapes instead of Countryside
• Ancient instead of Old
• (The ancient ladies come in from the landscape to sell cheese) - The old ladies come in from the country side to sell cheese.

• B*tch instead of Beach
• Taste instead of Test
• (You can go and taste the b*tch)- You can go and taste the beach.

• Christianism instead of Christianity
• A - Post- less instead of Apostles
• Estatuaries instead of Statues
• Too much faith instead of A lot of faith

We had a good time with Joaquin, until he left us and we thought we had lunch plans with our tour. We called the travel agency in Madrid, and worked everything out in the knick of time and Kim got to work on her Spanish, because the only thing our emergency guide to the restaurant for lunch knew in English was "Follow me". It was an interesting lunch, this time there was no fish, it was pork and beef roast with potatoes, some tastey salad and a semi-congelled flan. (Kyndra didn't eat much more than bread and potatoes again)

After lunch we came back and took a 2 hour siesta. It was fantastic, all of us slept, and all of us were excited to do some shopping when we started our night again. Most of us got our regalos (or souveniers) to bring home. There are a few more things to pick up in Madrid.

If Lunch was somewhat disappointing, dinner was a big hit. We ended up at a Paella place which served Arroz con Pollo, the one dish Kyndra has been looking forward to all week! She ate more than her half of the huge pot!

Tonight Collin sang his part of Compline, which I am sure will be posted on youtube as soon as we get back, it was great! He really does have a nice voice, maybe Miss Julie can get him out of his shell a bit more and he will join the choir at church (who knows HAHA).

The youth are packing now and we are going to leave for Madrid in the morning.

Can't wait to see what the "big" city is like, we hope to meet up with Irada and her family tomorrow for dinner.

Today we got separated, and Padre Vaca had a "Papal" moment as he looked out over the square, but the youth loved the fact that they got to yell across the square to get my attention. This is the picture I took of them from the ground, its not a great but they had a great time!

To the End of the World and Back Again

Today we went to Finesterre- where Julius Cesear saw the sunset over the water and claimed that this must be the end of the world, that the sun may never rise again and where ancient romans visited and prayed to the goddess Athena (maybe, maybe not I couldn’t’ quite understand all that our guide, Joaxin, was saying). We didn’t pray to Athena but we did look towards home and think about all of you whom we left behind.

It took us 5 hours to get to Finesterre, but we stopped in 3 villages and at the beach on the way. It was a fun day. Each town had its own church that we visited, one was converted into a museum for gravestones, another was a beautiful gothic, while another was a beautiful Romanesque structure. It was almost like a mini-pilgrimage with in a pilgrimage. We had evening prayer at the church on the way back into the world (The Parish of St Mary in the Village of Finisterre)- this was lead by Lucy and Richard who had the wonderful idea to do it there rather than on the bus.

The theme of the day has been resurrection- we read the story of Elijah resurrecting the widow’s son, and Jesus resurrecting Jairus daughter today during morning prayer. I couldn’t help but think of being reborn as we crawled under the “special kidney rock” today at the Church of the Lady of the Boats (at the point of death one of the deadliest coasts in the world for ships to pass through) where St James supposedly saw the Virgin Mary aboard a boat while he cried about the pagans in Galicia.

We learned a lot about the area of Spain where we are today- like that its very rainy (despite us having no rain yet KEEP ON PRAYING FOR FANTASTIC WEATHER!!), and that is has more in common with Ireland and Scotland than the southern part of Spain. We also learned that we will just be missing the biggest party of the year the feast of St John – on June 23, there are big bonfires to celebrate the beginning of the summer season here.

(We also learned of a tradition which you should make sure the young adults don’t try at home, that in order to keep safe from witches people jump over the coals of the bonfires 3 times, once for the Father, once for the Son, and once for the Holy Spirit, to keep you safe from witches.- so if you get something with a witch on it as a gift, your child, friend isn’t giving you a hint, just sharing part of the culture of Galacia with you).

On the way home everyone but Shane fell asleep, we had a nice siesta, and now we are going off to get some tapas for dinner. While our lunch was huge and very nice local flavor, some of us didn’t like much of it. We had Empenadas de Pisces, Totilla de Espana, Muscles, a beautiful white fish with potatoes and salad, followed by Apple cake. Even Father Cal and Kim ate the fish, some wouldn’t even tried it and ate

lots of bread and potatoes.

Tonight we hope to get a good night’s sleep, last night some of us had noisy neighbors, and the early morning wake up call came at about 7:00 am.

Hasta manana- tu pelegrinos

Until tomorrow – your pilgrims

PS - If you can tell me what you see in this picture I will give you a kiss.

Masses of People going to Mass

Today we went to the Catedral de Santiago de Compostela for the Pilgrims Mass.

The line was epically long. We had some issues with pers

onal space and some interesting line manners. We got to hug the apostle St James, and then we watched others hug him during the service.

Security is a big deal here, you can't bring back packs into the church to see the relics.

The mass was in three languages, and we didn't understand any of them. (Italian, Latin and Spanish). Some of us fell asleep (Jet Lag and Being confused will do that to you). There were so many people there that when we went to communion our seats were stolen. It was cr

azy.

Despues (After...) we worshiped we went to lunch. It was nice, except they don't put their hamburgers on buns here... see the photo.

We then went in search of "helado" ice cream. Amanda almost got attacked by a pigeon, and a gypsy.

We came home and had evening prayer and major transformations occured (more on this when we get back).

Tonight we went to a local park and played and walked (the men played sports and women shopped) for dinner we at at Las Vegas. There were good times had by all, including some optical gastronomic exploration. Pilgrims take many different forms.

We are about to do compline now, tomorrow we head to the end of the earth (Finnisterre).

Muchas Benedictas (besos y abrazos) "kisses and hugs"

Your Pilgrims

Benvenidos a Espana!- Saturday (Early Sunday Morning)

Hello All!

We made it. After 31 hours, 3 airline meals, 2 international airports, and 1 Hotel with

very small rooms, its now 6 am on Sunday and the youth are still sleeping.

I had written last night, but I couldn't get the internet to work so here's the main points of our travels thus far.

• Our flight out of Philly - we were 25th for take off, so instead of leaving at 6:30 we left at 8.
• Our shirts arrived to Reading at 4 pm after we left (they will be at the church for us upon our return)
• Our flight out of Frankfurt was changed to 11:25 am so we had time to breathe (thanks be to God)
• Kim's camera and Amanda's shoes set off security alarms in Frankfurt so they were treated to security checks
• Half of our luggage went strait onto the plane and the other half of it we claimed in Madrid
• Shane set off Security in Madrid and the guard thought Kim was his mom to which Shane clearly said "No!"
• We had our first prayer service in the Madrid Airport under the cross pictured here.
• Arrived in Santiago at about 6 pm local time - about 12 noon
• Met up with Paula at the air port, got settled into the hotel which is very nice, but the rooms are very "quaint" aka small.
• Had dinner in the hotel last night everything was relatively recognizable (except Lucy put what we have figured out is Spanish Ketchup on her pasta- to her credit it was between the french fries and the penne pasta and it was red)
• After dinner some of the youth saidthey weren't tired, that they wanted to walk around Santiago, but after sitting around for 15 minutes they all got groggy.
• We had Spirit filled Compline around 9:30 pm local time nearly 24 hours after we were scheduled to leave Philly (some of us hadn't slept for over 30 hours)

This morning we are heading off to explore Santiago de Compostela

We are going to Mass at noon.

I woke up Amanda and Lucy so that they can beautify themselves, and we have about 30 minutes until breakfast.

I'll write again tonight. Blessings

Thank you for all of your support, your prayers, and your love. We really appreciate it.

Adios (with God)

Your Pilgrims!

5 Days

Dear Pilgrims/ Pilgrim Angels/ Parents,

We've worked so hard for this pilgrimage and its finally here.

It will be an amazing spirit filled week, and as we prepare we have found out in the last 24 hours that a member of our team will not be joining us for our actual travels. Warren McKeon's sister is gravely ill and he has gone to be with her in Long Island as she prepares for the final journey, that great pilgrimage into eternal life. We will bring him with us in our prayers.

The good news is that Fr Cal's brother in law- Richard Kendall Morris, who went with the 2008 pilgrimage crew has been able to arrange to come with us in the most recent 24 hours. We are waiting to hear about how to do the transfer from Johanna at Mayfair, and while we hold our breaths for that we are certainly preparing to the best of our abilities to go on this pilgrimage together.

Some people are finishing up classes, while according to face book others are done for the year and some others have graduated. Keep up the good work guys and gals and I'll see you at the church at 1:45 on Friday.

Blessings,
Kim