Madrid: Toronto, Meet Madrid. Madrid, hold on to your hats.

Alicia Ambrosio

April 8, 2011
Working at World Youth Day is like working inside a laboratory where everything happens fast, loudly and with an explosion of colour...and all of it is fueled by a faith that needs to be shared. Even so, there are days when a familiar face is a welcome site. This past week I got a visit from two familiar faces: Pedro Guevara Mann and S+L's technical director Javier Capella.
Pedro and Javier flew in to scout out locations for S+L's broadcast booth and locations for on the ground reports, get get inside information about WYD main events and get to know the teams from the Knights of Columbus, the Sisters of Life and Family Rosary International who, along with S+L, will be co-hosting the Love and Life site during WYD.
The Love and Life site will be located in Madrid's Palacio de Deportes and will serve as a hub for English speaking pilgrims. Some of the English language catechesis sessions will be located at the Palacio. The site will also offer a full plate of speakers, musical entertainment, prayer sites, and - most importantly- air conditioning.
Preparing a centre for English speaking pilgrims is no small task. Many, many meetings are involved. It was a great way for everyone from all the different groups to get to know each other and make coordinating such a big task just a little bit easier.
In between meetings Pedro was hard at work scouting locations for reports and finding interesting things to talk about in Madrid...sometimes taking me along, sometimes not.
To the right you can see Pedro and I infront of the Royal Palace.
And below that, Javier looks on as Pedro and I have a battle of the lenses after shooting standups at Puerta de Alcala (I guess since we're using the picture from Pedro's point of view, he won the battle!).
Be sure to stay tuned to Salt + Light this August for our complete World Youth Day Madrid coverage!