An event that sparked a period of personal growth in my life was when I attended the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia during my sophomore year of high school. The World Meeting of Families is an event promoted by the Catholic Church every three years to celebrate and reflect on the importance of family. I was interested in the ideas of this event and decided to travel with my school to visit Philadelphia for three days. I was traveling for the first time, without my family to an unfamiliar city, accompanied by people that I did not know very well. My experience at the World Meeting of Families was not what I was expecting. I imagine that my younger self envisioned this experience to be days of sightseeing this new city and spending
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I was in a group of about fifty girls, so the goal at the subway station became to not worry if we all would ride the same train, but instead reach the same destination. Being one of the youngest in the group, I did not want to be the one left behind, so I squeezed onto the crowded train and headed into the city. As we arrived it became clear this was not going to be a glamorous city trip, especially for those who are impatient or those who do not like walking. My group was staying in a hotel almost an hour outside of the city that we would leave at eight in the morning and not return to until ten at night. There were few places to purchase food in the city due to all the road closures going in and out of Philadelphia. I stuffed everything that I would eat for my 14 hour day into my drawstring backpack. I quickly learned to ration my two uncrustable peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, an apple, and pretzels. Every day that we arrived at the festival, we would wait in a security line for three hours before entering the town center to settle down at a spot to camp as we listened to many speakers and waited for Pope Francis to drive by in his Pope-mobile. It was during these times of waiting that I made my fondest memories of the trip. No one in the city had found the pavement of
I was in a group of about fifty girls, so the goal at the subway station became to not worry if we all would ride the same train, but instead reach the same destination. Being one of the youngest in the group, I did not want to be the one left behind, so I squeezed onto the crowded train and headed into the city. As we arrived it became clear this was not going to be a glamorous city trip, especially for those who are impatient or those who do not like walking. My group was staying in a hotel almost an hour outside of the city that we would leave at eight in the morning and not return to until ten at night. There were few places to purchase food in the city due to all the road closures going in and out of Philadelphia. I stuffed everything that I would eat for my 14 hour day into my drawstring backpack. I quickly learned to ration my two uncrustable peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, an apple, and pretzels. Every day that we arrived at the festival, we would wait in a security line for three hours before entering the town center to settle down at a spot to camp as we listened to many speakers and waited for Pope Francis to drive by in his Pope-mobile. It was during these times of waiting that I made my fondest memories of the trip. No one in the city had found the pavement of