Palace, Opera, and the Pope

Its our last night in Madrid. It's been a long vacation, but it's been a nice evening. After a hot day wandering thru the streets, it all ended with a spiritual and musical night.

Our hotel is across from the Royal Palace and all week there has been an opera performance in the garden. This video is from our window - there are little flashing lights at the bottom of the screen, that's the stage, but we can't really see the performers. I think they are doing the Barber of Seville, but I could be wrong since I dont know opera or what they are saying.

Coinciding with our trip has been the World Youth Day conference of the Catholic church, so the city has been flooded with 1 million youth and the Pope. The streets have been filled with their singing and flag waving (we've realized we really need to brush up on our flag identification before the Olympics) and then today, they were mysteriously gone, the streets were quiet. We thought they had all gone home. But then we turned on the news this evening and found out they were all camped out in a vigil on the outskirts of the city, with a program lead by the Pope. I don't know if it's officially called mass, but he spoke and there was prayer and the Eucharist. At the end, there were fireworks, which we could see from our hotel, too, but they aren't in the video because I was nervous I'd drop my iPad out the window.

Now, to pack up and finish my sangria.