World Youth Day 2008 Sydney Australia - Michelle's experience
| Clane artwork |
Michelle in Sydney |
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 At Bondi Hotel |
Michelle Crowe, YCW member, flew in to Sydney together with 50 other people from Kildare and Leighlin Diocese to participate in World Youth Day 2008. Here she tells us about her experience in Australia.
The journey to Australia
World Youth Day 2008, where to start!! Well my name is Michelle and I attended World Youth Day this year for the first time ever! I travelled with my diocese Kildare and Leighlin.
We set out on our journey to Sydney Australia on the 5th of July and arrived on the 8th after two stop overs in England and Korea. It was a long and drooling journey but the feelings of excitement and anxiousness kept us all awake and hyper of course.
Opening Mass
We spent our first week taking part in days in the diocese in a small town outside Canberra called Boorowa. This was amazing and it was most definitely a life changing experience. We then moved onto Sydney and this is where the World Youth Day celebrations came into full swing!!
The city was full of pilgrims and bright lights as we made our way to Barangaroo for the Opening Mass and the arrival of the man himself Pope Benedict. I will never forget the Goosebumps I got all over my body as the 600,000 people chanted "Benedicto". When the Pope arrived and began to speak not one person in the whole place uttered a word, everyone was fascinated by the beautiful speech that he greeted the crowds of young people with. I remember looking around me and thinking My God this is the biggest event going on in the whole world right now and I am here with my friends and taking part in this.
Closing Mass
For the Closing Mass which took place on the 19th of July we slept out under the stars at Randwick Racecourse. For me this was the downside of World Youth Day but with a little help from Jenny Casey and my boyfriend, this night turned out to be great craic. We stayed up playing cards and singing and dancing and I didn't have to worry about any spiders or snakes climbing into my sleeping back especially with Jenny and her Ugg boot keeping guard!
Farewell
The next morning we bid a farewell to the Pope and he spoke for over a half an hour in eight different languages before announcing that the next World Youth Day will take place in Madrid, Spain, where it will be a lot easier for us Irish to get to!! Overall I enjoyed WYD the only thing I would change if I could, was the sleep out under the stars as a lot of people ended up in hospital during the night suffering from hypothermia and nausea.
That's my WYD experience summed up very small!! I hope you enjoyed it!!!