As you know, I went to Lourdes last week with my college. I've been before with my parents and loved it, but this time... meh. It wasn't as good.

For starters, it was far more preachy than I expected. Yes, I knew it was a pilgrimage, but I thought they'd let us get on with our job as helpers (afterall, that's what we were there for) rather than sending us to mass twice a day and making it impossible to spend any time with the eldery person we were caring for.

luckily, our pilgrim was lovely. A lady called Kitty who was very spirited! She's 89 but certainly doesn't act it, she drinks whisky, flirts with priests and pushes her own wheelchair when she's bored of sitting down for too long!

That part was good, the rest wasn't so good.

I'll start with the good bits.
1) The international mass. It was amazing singing in all those different languages
2) The singing in the youth mass, it was so energetic and powerful.
3) The hotel was clean and served passable food.
4) Ciarán buying me ice cream when I was upset.

The bad though...
1) The priests had no emotion in their voices and every single time we had an outdoor mass I used it as an excuse to wear sunglasses to cover up that my eyes were closed during the priests homily (aka, his 15 minutes of talking, talking and more talking in a very flat and dull voice) Inside masses meant I had to force my eyes open. I've never ever been bored in mass before until I went to Lourdes.
2) The baths, everyone raved about them and how wonderful they were. Personally, I queued for 2 hours so I could be snapped at by an italian lady and frozen in a pool of water. Also, the claim that you're "never naked" in the baths? Complete and utter lie. When you've in the water, the white cloth they put around you floats up and gives the nuns a lovely view of your girly bits- plus, they're holding both your arms so you can't push it back down.
3) The fact that my boyfriend ignored me for most of the trip.
4) The torch light procession. They do a full rosary in the town centre. Now, a rosary is 5 decades, and each decade has 10 hail mary prayers. Simple enough, and not that long. But... they managed to make it last 1 hour and a half by doing each decade in FIVE different languages. Also, my candle holder set on fire. Twice.
5) The fact that my usually sweet RE teacher became a dictator.
6) The rain. But that can't be helped.
7) The fact that I was looked down on for not going to confession. I'm not catholic, so I can't have my sins forgiven in confession, I can only have a blessing. Also, if I did say something to the priest that concerned him (For example, If I told him I'd had an abortion) because I was not a catholic he was free to tell my teachers. So, I chose not to go, because even though I've not done anything majorly wrong, knowing he was free to tell did not give me any desire to talk to him about my secrets- which personally I don't think are all that sinful, it's normal to read smutty stories or read my horoscope in a magazine.

So, all in all, it wasn't that much of a good trip. I remained upbeat though it though as I didn't want to seem rude or sulky, and admit that it was nice being away with some of my friends, and I did enjoy the singing in mass, but... sorry, it just ended up making me even more determind not to convert to catholosism, give me gospel or baptist churches anyday!