Pilgrim Blog: Day 5

Joanna:
Today was the official start of WYD. I am excited to finally come together as a faith community. The city has been crawling with happy foreigners singing their crazy songs. The day started very early with breakfast at 6:30 and the bus tour at 7.
The bus tour took us through the suburbs of Sydney. I loved the architecture of the buildings and houses. The most beautiful stop was the Rocks. We then went to the surfer’s beach: Bonai beach. I wanted to put my toe in, but I put both feet up to my knee. Thankfully there were no sharks in the water.
We then traded the bus for the boat and shared a boat ride with the pilgrims from NYC, Connecticut and Minnesota. I took some great photos of the opera house, light houses and the bridge. The boat was 2 levels and we came together on the first floor and sang and danced to several popular songs like the WYD theme and Sweet Caroline.
But the main focus of the day was the mass and youth festival. The mass was 2.75 hours long. There were over 200,000 people. Archbishop Pell from Sydney said the mass. We were lucky to have good seats between the nuns from Korea, the people of France, the Italians, Colombians, and the Poles. Archbishop Sean had a great seat behind the alter. There were over 6 huge 50x50 screens that showed us what was happening. After the mass we all came together for a huge concert. We were dancing like fools! Joanne, Peter, Steve, Phin, Kevin C, Kevin J, Maria and I taught various groups to dance the Pony (this is not the 1960’s version!). We had dancers from Wisconsin, California, England, Poland and other countries. But then the Germans messed it up. The event was big and loud.
We closed the night was an awesome pyrotechnic and firework show. The blasts were load and colorful.
Overall this was my favorite day. For now on we pray the creed and say ‘one, holy, catholic and apostolic church’ we will always think of this mass and celebration.