Abroad in Alcala: Pilgrimage to Fatima

I can not think of a better way to start the Lenten season then by taking a pilgrimage to Fatima. I started out on Friday leaving from Toledo towards Fatima (Toledo is about an 1 hour from me). In Toldeo Craig, my travel buddy, and I met up with 200 other people including about 25 priests preparing to take the pilgrimage. They were all under the age of 30. We got on our bus and were immediately known as the Americans and everyone welcomed us and loved to talking to us. We loved talking to them to because they could only speak spanish so I got a lot of practice! We started out on our journey towards Fatima probably around 4 on friday and only went half way. We slept in a school hallway the first night which was actually fun until we had to wake up at 5am to continue driving to Fatima. SIDE NOTE:Portugal is absolutely beautiful and all the little towns we walked through still had old women with aprons on and bandanas in their hair. So beautiful and unfortunately the pictures I have do no justice for it (i am really bad at taking pictures or the camera is). Anyway, we arrived in a town 20 kilometers(about 14 miles) outside of Fatima around 2pm and began our walk to Fatima. During the walk we sang, prayed the rosary, had moments of silence...all 600 of us walked on the right and then the priests walked on the left so people could go to confession as we walked. I met a girl along the way named Sam from Canada and although we could both speak English we only spoke in Spanish to each other. (I love it!) We arrived in Fatima around 7pm and immediately had mass in an outside chapel in Fatima...beautiful and truly emotional too. The next day everyone was going to visit the houses where Jacinta, Lucia, and Francisco lived but because Craig and I would have to leave later that day we wanted to see Fatima in the daylight...the site consists of an outside chapel, a Cathedral where the 3 children are buried, outside stations of the cross and a very large church (kind of like the ones on TV Sunday services)...We then had mass with just the six of us who had to leave early (the pilgrimage lasts until Tuesday but Craig and I had exams this week so we had to leave early) ...I had a six hour car ride to Talaverra, 2 hour busride to Madrid, and then an hour busride to Alcala...totally worth it! I never thought I could have had a six hour car ride with all Spanish people and talk the whole time but I did and it was probably one of the fastest car rides of my life! (and I have been on many roadtrips)