Bence (11 years old, Szombathely)

Such reports are difficult to start, as the trips are always the most exciting at the beginning. Meeting at Ferihegy at 4.15 in the morning promised noting good – I expected tired, crabby kids and grouchy fathers. In contrast with it, I found two brilliant, smiling and exated guys as I met Tamás and Bence. There was no trace of blues, sleeplessness - and certainly not the disease.
And to jump right to the end to summarize one of the most fantastic results of the work of Csodalámpa: it is able to achieve something that neither medicine nor therapy nor doctors can do – it can make the children and moreover their parents forget for a few hours or a few days about the disease of their lives. Even the journey was a special experience, because as it turned out, none of the children had ever gone by air, so from the security check to the duty free shops, every moment meant a whole new world. Then when we left the terminal at Barcelona and we felt in our faces the warmth of 20 C in December (I put it in writing that everyone can understand: a twenty-degree heat), that time we all knew that we would have a great time there.

We took a taxi to get to the hotel, and a few minutes later we were already on the way towards Barcelona's famous zoo. A bit later we found the first orange tree, from which we could get a couple of oranges with the help of a stone – somebody growing up in Hungary can never get used to such an experience...

Soon we managed to get in the famous dolphin show and I have to admit that I – as an adult who has already seen a lot – was also clapping with an open mouth and shining eyes along the program. Kids were full of experiences as we were walking along the palm-lined downtown and we slowly reached the La Rambla (Vaci street of Barcelona), destination of all self-respecting tourists, where you can get everything but really everything. Certainly we were mostly interested in shirts and scarves of Barcelona because we couldn’t go to the evening match wearing simple civil suits...
It was already dark, a few minutes after 7.00 pm when, following the crowd, we arrived at Europe's biggest stadium, the Nou Camp to be held in reverence by Barcelona fans. Thanks to our generous sponsors, we had the opportunity to go into the monumental building, and after walking about 8 floors we reached our places and we could finally see the stadium in its full size. After the match started and Barcelona FC got the first goal - well, I think that was the time when the boys could realize that they were really there. And all their friends were just sitting and watching TV at home as usually, but they were sitting in the stadium...

Barca had another three (!) goals, so the final result was 4:0, which exceeded even the wildest dreams. We were so tired that evening that there was a fear we all would fall asleep in the tiny elevator. But that time we had no idea what kind of experiences would await us next day. We planned our daily program together as the day before and of course nothing could be more important than to return to the scene of the brilliant victory and to pay for a stadium tour. We couldn’t even reach the gate when we got in the official gift shop - there was really everything that a Barca fan could ever desire - and even much more!

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And the highlight of the whole journey arrived - the stadium tour. It was so professional, so rich, so fascinating, as the trip showed us the club’s more than 100 years of history and all the important and interesting moments. I am sure that people who are not interested in football at all, can also enjoy the "sanctuary".

We spent nearly five hours in the stadium - and I can tell you honestly, we all wished we would have more time... but we didn’t have because we didn’t want to miss either the Sagrada Familia nor the beach. So we took the metro again, then we were running, eating, taking photos, laughing a lot and talking about how incredible that they were there: those two boys from Baja and Szombathely, who had already spent hundreds of times in different hospitals than an average man throughtout his life. And now they were running free from care on the sandy beach of Barcelona, leaving their winter clothes at home and talking about the goals that were shot last evening by their favourite football team – in front of their eyes, only a few meters from the place where they were sitting.

This journey was an incredible gift - to the children, their parents - and of course to me too. The Wonder Lamp works, it makes magics, and it is really a miracle - not just fulfilling wishes, but changing lives - and in fact this is the greatest miracle.

Viva Barcelona!

István Madarász
wish-coordinator
December 8, 2011, Barcelona

Many thanks to the WORLD FOOTBALL Tickets, Messrs. János Szövérfi and Zoltán Bartos for the match tickets.





Many thanks to the colleagues of GE HEALTHCARE for their support to help us to realize the wishes.





This wish has been realised thanks to a CookingSchool event supported by the Corinthia Hotel Budapest.


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