Lost in the Vatican

A backwards baseball cap, a dress and sneakers. That was my wardrobe when I met former Pope John Paul II.

A couple months after receiving my Confirmation and celebrating my 15th birthday, I embarked on a pilgrimage to Rome with my CCD graduating class. The plane ticket cost $500. We fundraised for months to earn enough money. With more than $2,000 in traveler's checks, I journeyed into Catholicism's holiest ground with five girls and four boys. The week-long trip tested our survival skills and strengthened our faith.

It was no vacation. Our disciplined routine consisted of attending numerous daily masses, awakening at the crack of dawn, wearing formal attire every day and constantly meeting strict appointments and deadlines. Sleeping on a cold, hard floor in sleeping bags, our shelter was an abandoned classroom in a run-down elementary school. Forced into humble nutrition, our diet was limited to one bland, mass-produced boxed lunch a day. We also chugged rancid-tasting liquid out of a cardboard carton to escape Italy's contaminated water system. Stripping us of all comfort, the cushions were removed from the kneelers at Mass, so the solid wood beams cut into our abraded knees.

In addition, the school had no hot water. So after enduring the first arctic shower from a rusty faucet, I vowed to abstain from bathing for the rest of the trip. Luckily, I had stashed a Philadelphia Eagles cap underneath the stack of daily-required dresses. By the fifth day, I used it to mask my greasy, disheveled quaff.

Venturing into the city tested our fortitude just as much as our living conditions. The Vatican was packed to the brim with an estimated 700,000 people within a seven-mile radius. It took nearly an hour to walk a half-mile. During our tumultuous tour through Rome, bodies crammed against each other like five people squeezed into the backseat of a Mitsubishi Eclipse.

The females and males had split into two separate chaperoned groups. The golden rule was stick together. Filtering our way through the crowd, I suddenly noticed that Jessica Gagnon, a tall, slender 14-year-old, had gone astray about 40 feet behind us.