Portugal & Fatima

Portugal, Fatima, seeing the ocean for the first time, walking around and chanting with the virgin mary...need I say more.

     Let me start at the beginning.  The first few weeks I was in Segovia, my family told me about a trip they were taking to Portugal and invited me and some of my friends to come along.  They wrote out an itinerary which included visiting a church in Ciudad Rodrigo, spending two nights in Fatima, visiting another church in Fatima, seeing the beach in Portugal, and stopping at a very famous and ancient university in Coimbra on our way back.  It sounded really good especially for the price of 155 Euros, which included food, lodging, and transportation as well.  Maybe they forgot to mention…or my Spanish wasn't really that good, but somehow I missed the part about the trip involving my families catholic church group...cough...take that into consideration and the destination of Fatima and now you are starting to get the idea. 

     The first thing we learned on our trip was that Spanish church groups like to sing church songs the entire time when traveling.  I now know at least one Catholic church song in Spanish.  It was “interesting”.  However, everyone was really nice to us, they even dedicated a song to “ los ninos americanos” (the American children)…que mono (how cute).  And the churches were nice to see, though after a while they all start to look the same.  I would say the highlight for me was seeing the ocean for the first time…It was awesome…I can’t think of any other way to describe it.  I know understand why everyone wants to go to Florida for Spring break back in the States.  AND of course I filled up a cheap plastic water bottle full of sand and small shells to take home with me.  And we had to at least wade in the water even though it was quite cold, though we didn’t anticipate the actual height of the waves very well and so spent the rest of the day walking around with soaked pants…but it was sooooo worth it. 

     Ok, on to the Virgin Mary and Fatima…you know, where the three Shepard children saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary and now it is a huge pilgrimage site for Catholics.  We kind of had an idea what Fatima was, but we didn’t anticipate the thousands of people who really come every night to the shrine or “Our Lady”.  Don’t get me wrong, it was really cool that thousands of different people with different languages pilgrimage to the same spot to worship and be united in at least one thing.   They even had mass in numerous languages: Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, English…just to name a few.  But at the end when everyone started walking around with the shrine, carrying candles, and chanting it was a little weird.  When they did that, I had a clear vision of what it might have been like to worship Diana in ancient Rome.  I can definitely see similarities between Catholicism and Roman Paganism.  Lets just say that we opted to stay at the hotel the second night they all went to the progression or the Virgin Mary. 

     Even after all that, there is still one last story that must be told, even though it is at my expense.  After the church group dedicated a song to us, they insisted we sing an American song for everyone.  Never....I mean NEVER…say maybe, because you will end up doing it even if you don’t want to.  To make a long story short, I ended up singing a solo in front of the whole bus on a microphone.  It was embarrassing enough, and then they wanted me to explain the song.  My weakest part is speaking and when I am flushed I go completely blank in English let alone Spanish.  I think I might have said the hero/protagonist killed someone instead of died at the end...oh well.  We’ll just put that one right up there with getting lost on the second day in Segovia and move on.