---

World Youth Day 2008 has ended, to sum up what has just occurred in the last week is beyond words. Before I left for Sydney I had no idea what to expect and had limited expectations on what to foresee, but if I can give one word to describe my whole experience, it would probably have to be EPIC. The reason I went to World Youth Day was to potentially get closer to God and to challenge my faith and beliefs and throughout the past week I have been challenged physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally. From  the time I got onto the bus to the time I saw the Pope whiz past really fast in his Pope mobile to being stuck in the bus again on the way to Brisbane, I have been challenged.

World Youth Day wasn't just any event, it was an experience, and to see thousands of people from across the globe believing in the same thing as you was amazing. I could not believe the amount of people let alone each country they represented and it was interesting to note that even though we had traffic-jams of people, and it took forever to enter some sites, such as Barangaroo, it was unbelievable that no fights broke out, and people didn't even push or shove there way through, everyone seemed to walk through calmly without any incident.

I was afraid that Sydney may have been too cool for religion and potentially shun or insult pilgrims, after all it occured in Brisbane where some pilgrims were heckled during the Pre-World Youth Day celebrations, but it seemed to me that Sydney embraced and almost loved the pilgrims. An example would be when we were heading towards Randwick, there were construction workers in a building and they were blowing a whistle and chanting 'Benedictus!' with other pilgrims. I did notice however that Sydney almost turned into pilgrim city, with next to no office workers or 'normal' people in general, I think they just wanted to avoid the traffic issues and I believe that employers allowed workers to take a day off to avoid the crush of pilgrims.  Overall I think that this was a once in a lifetime experience for myself and has been worth all the pain and glory.

Images originally uploaded on Facebook

There are no comments to this entry.