I disappoint my mother because I'm no longer comfortable calling myself a Catholic, let alone a Christian. Regardless, she forced me to do a "Meet & Greet" with the World Youth Day "pilgrims". My sister, Grace, and I (so close we're almost twins) got to the church at 10 and met up with her friend from school, Yasmine and two other people who go to their school, they'd been there since 8 setting up decorations and putting out food. One of the girls from my sister's school had been dragged along with her brother by their mum to it and was all kinds of preppy typical in the same-y way that most preppy guys my age are.
Anyway, the whole meet and greet was meant to be a morning tea for the "pilgrims" but they were delayed till 1. So Grace, Yasmine and I spent the time talking bout books and movies until a girl from the school down the road came with her sister and her sister's friend from Uni. Thus, we discussed what they were doing at Uni, what it was like there and what we wanted to do with our lives. I found out that all the med students have wild parties and that it's not easy to crash a med jazz party in something casual. At 12 we all disappeared for a while to get lunch, Yasmine and I weren't hungry so we just grabbed a coffee and Grace had ginger beer (almost 18 yet very much still like a little kid). Yasmine and Grace were fantasising about where their dream husband/boyfriend would come from and both decided that an English accent would be a major turn on, Yasmine then turned to me and asked my where my dream girlfriend would from. Part of me felt annoyed that they were discussing it and that Yasmine was being incredibly shallow and that she usually isn't, not only is she really attractive but she's really smart and opinonated when it comes to current events, another part of me was incredibly embarrassed 'cause I'm exactly certain if I swing in any major direction. I just politely said "What happens, happens how can any of us know who what our future partners will be like. It won't matter if they're British or from some really obscure village in Russia, what will really matter are their pheromones." Much laughs followed.
The "pilgrims" didn't show 'til 1:40. At first it was really awkward, they were all from Greece and between us volunteers, we had someone who understood a small bit of German, me, two people who could speak French, Jasmine and a student from Kanbala and someone who could speak Italian. I really had to lower my level of English and speak up, I tend mumble a lot, and just dive in with your standard "Hi"'s and "what do you think/welcome to Australia". I was pulled into a few folk dances and my lack of physical rhythm was largely ignored. The people I talked to only just wanted to learn things about Australia's culture which, I must confess is near non existant when compared to the reachness of their culture. In turn I learnt a bit about Greece and they learnt some stuff about Sydney and New South Wales.
World Youth Day is a week long celebration/recruitment drive/faith revival for young Catholics, most people in Greece are Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholicism is most prominent on the islands such as Crete (well, that's what a Catholic priest from Thessaloniki told me). Subsequently most people I talked to were from the periphery of Crete.
A Cretan girl I spent a lot of time talking to told me that she used to do a fair bit of modeling work and informed of her warped-catholicism fueled semi-disgust of all the Chinese people and gay people in Sydney. This was actually a serious conversation:
Her: So, everywhere I turn here I see little Chinese people every where. Like, all over places.
Me: Um, well, they're not just Chinese, that's a big generalisation - they could actually be Vietnamese, Tibetan, Thai, Indonesian, Japanese or Malay.
Her: Why don't you just get rid of them? Get them out of country?
Me: Some people have actually tried but if people like it or not - they're here to stay and they're an important part of society and Sydney's multi-cultural identity.
AWKWARD SILENCE
Her: I see lot of the gays in your city
Me: Sydney is pretty liberal - I mean, we're really open to everyone
Her: They were like holding hands and everything, some had Luis Viton handbags.
Me: Diffren't pe'ple differn't strokes
I WALK AWAY WITH PLATTER I'M HOLDING MILDLY ANNOYED AND AMUSED AT IGNORANCE
The last hour there was pretty much just listening to two Greek guys with a guitar play Greek folk songs and other songs in Greek while people sung along, clapped and danced