When the Iowa group got in, we took the train to Campbelltown, then the bus to our host, Mary Magdellan Catholic College (high school), in Camden. We were greeted by the principal and received our WYD backpacks, pilgrim guides, and other swag (Stuff We All Get). Very cool! We picked which classrooms were were going to call our home for the next week and then Fr. Paul brought us back into Sydney (always on the train) to grab some food and then walked to Mary's (same friend him and I stayed over at the night before). It was great to see the place during the day and we all went around to her backyard on the waterfront. Beautiful scenery & very relaxing. I noticed an airplane just drew a cross in the clear sky and then everyone watched as it spelled "JESUS". Talk about spreading the Word so the whole town could see it! That was great to watch the lost art of sky-writing.
Soon afterwards, the group naturally began to talk amongst themselves to determine what everyone wanted to do for the remainder of the day. The group I decided to tag along with wanted to get used to the city a bit more so we got on the train, went from North Sydney to Circular Quay (sounds like "key"), and walked down to see the Sydney Opera House. We took some pictures and I grabbed some near-by German guys to be in the photo with me - I need to take pictures with random tourists more often...
My "mini-group" then continued through the streets, away from the harbor, some looking specifically for a pub the locals frequent. Of course, anything remotely near the harbor was going to be too "touristy". So they finally asked some workers who must have been on break and they were happy to help - real friendly and easy to talk to. Certainly, the places they mentioned were too far away for the moment so the group settled for some beers at the place next door.
Once I knew where they'd be for a while, I back-tracked to the museum we just passed. Admission, normally $5, was free for us pilgrims! I only had 30 mins before it closed though. It was small but interesting. Their history reminds me a lot of America's history - even our styles in the 1950's were similar...
I returned to the pub and the group was ready to leave, but a local guy came through and started to talk to us (our backpacks easily revealing that we were pilgrims). He offered to buy everyone a round so we stayed and chatted some more. Now, many of you know that I don't drink...and some may think it's rude to order water when a drink has been offered...so I upped the anty and ordered a glass of water...on the rocks. That made everyone laugh and continue with their conversations! Every time I got to speak with someone from Australia I asked the same questions, "How excited are the people of Sydney to host WYD? Or are we just a nuisance because of the closed roads, packed train stations, etc?" I always got roughly the same answer: "I'm sure some are bothered by it and there has been some dispute over the fact that the city is putting a lot of money into an event that is seen as exclusively for one branch of one religion. There are also doubts about the actual amount of people that would show up. But, overwhelmingly, the buzz of WYD has caused a lot of positive energy in the city and we know it's pretty big to say we can hold these large international events." ~This is not a specific quote from one person, but a generalized statement of the viewpoints. Again, these are great people to talk with!
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