Sunday, July 13, 2008
Melbourne was Wicked!
July 10 -14
It's been a busy couple of days! We arrived in Melbourne on Thursday afternoon, having stayed in Brisbane less than 24 hours. Once we arrived we awaited our pilgrim transport and met some fellow pilgrims, from Minnisota/USA, and Kingston. After waiting around for a few hours, they decided to get the bus to drive us directly to our stop, where our host families had been anxiously anticipating our arrival. We were warmly received and had tea at Lena and Joe's. It was a bit chaotic as arrangements were made and schedules sorted out. Ashlie and I got paired up with Michael and Eileen Griffith, a kind and friendly elderly couple.
We had a quick supper and then Anne, Kathleen, Katherine and I were off to the Bush Dance at the Australian Catholic University. Good times! It reminded me a lot of square dancing or French Canadian dancing. We learned several dances, including one where we got to either baa like sheep or moo like cows/bulls. Yeah!
Friday, we went to 8:30am mass and met the parish priest, Fr. Tran. Then we were off to the Aquarium. After that, we split off, the girls to go shopping, Damien, Carlos and I to go to the Immigration Museum and Michael went... somewhere else. The museum was interesting but definitely depressing. Australian immigration history is similar to Canada's and it is amazing to me to see how terrible we can be to people who we perceive to be different than ourselves. The propaganda!! And this is less that a century ago! Unsettling, to say the least. After that , Damien and I cheered ourselves up with chocolate covered churros as Carlos went off to the Art Gallery. We met up with the rest of the group at the Telstra dome where we celebrated mass with 30 000 other pilgrims/Melbournians. One of the pre-mass highlights was doing the wave around the stadium, including over 600 priests/clergy. Every time the wave way got to them the whole rest of the crowd cheered them on. And the crowds on train ride home was something else! Just a warm up to how Sydney's going to be...
Saturday we got up to do a pilgrim walk around down town of the Blessed Mary MacKillop of Melbourne. We stopped upon the impressive St.Patrick's Cathedral kinda randomly and stayed for adoration before we checked out the stops highlighting her life. After that, we were off to a Aussie Rules football game, Collingwood Magpies vs Adelaide Crows. We were advised before hand that the team to cheer for were the Magpies. A few of us got suited up in Magpie Black and White and we cheered them to victory 106-74. What a fun game to watch! I'm definitely a footy fan. And as it turns out, a few of us were put on TV! Before the game, a few of our group ran into a few of the pilgrims from St.Theresa's. We got asked to take pictures with a young footy fan with a Canadian flag. And apparently we made it onto the evening news! Add that to my 15min of fame!! After footy, Ashlie, Carlos, Damien, Kathleen, Michael and I went off in search of food. We happened upon an Italian restaurant. We were the only ones in there for the better part of are meal and were well doted on. After that, we headed back to ACU for a concert by Matt Maher. And thus concluded another great day!
This morning, we went to mass at Corpus Christi and had a nice tea after mass with the parishoners. After that, we were off to the zoo! We saw kangaroos and emus and lions and tigers and meerkats and wombats and bears and butterflies and orang-utans and elephants and giraffes. After that we headed back downtown to grab a bite before our show. We went and saw WICKED at the Regent Theatre. That is the nicest theatre I have ever been in. And WICKED was so great! And now it is WAY past my bed time and we are getting picked up at 6:30am to head to the airport and then we and 30 000 other people for here will be headed off to Sydney. Man oh man oh man! It's been such a great time so far!
It's been a busy couple of days! We arrived in Melbourne on Thursday afternoon, having stayed in Brisbane less than 24 hours. Once we arrived we awaited our pilgrim transport and met some fellow pilgrims, from Minnisota/USA, and Kingston. After waiting around for a few hours, they decided to get the bus to drive us directly to our stop, where our host families had been anxiously anticipating our arrival. We were warmly received and had tea at Lena and Joe's. It was a bit chaotic as arrangements were made and schedules sorted out. Ashlie and I got paired up with Michael and Eileen Griffith, a kind and friendly elderly couple.
We had a quick supper and then Anne, Kathleen, Katherine and I were off to the Bush Dance at the Australian Catholic University. Good times! It reminded me a lot of square dancing or French Canadian dancing. We learned several dances, including one where we got to either baa like sheep or moo like cows/bulls. Yeah!
Friday, we went to 8:30am mass and met the parish priest, Fr. Tran. Then we were off to the Aquarium. After that, we split off, the girls to go shopping, Damien, Carlos and I to go to the Immigration Museum and Michael went... somewhere else. The museum was interesting but definitely depressing. Australian immigration history is similar to Canada's and it is amazing to me to see how terrible we can be to people who we perceive to be different than ourselves. The propaganda!! And this is less that a century ago! Unsettling, to say the least. After that , Damien and I cheered ourselves up with chocolate covered churros as Carlos went off to the Art Gallery. We met up with the rest of the group at the Telstra dome where we celebrated mass with 30 000 other pilgrims/Melbournians. One of the pre-mass highlights was doing the wave around the stadium, including over 600 priests/clergy. Every time the wave way got to them the whole rest of the crowd cheered them on. And the crowds on train ride home was something else! Just a warm up to how Sydney's going to be...
Saturday we got up to do a pilgrim walk around down town of the Blessed Mary MacKillop of Melbourne. We stopped upon the impressive St.Patrick's Cathedral kinda randomly and stayed for adoration before we checked out the stops highlighting her life. After that, we were off to a Aussie Rules football game, Collingwood Magpies vs Adelaide Crows. We were advised before hand that the team to cheer for were the Magpies. A few of us got suited up in Magpie Black and White and we cheered them to victory 106-74. What a fun game to watch! I'm definitely a footy fan. And as it turns out, a few of us were put on TV! Before the game, a few of our group ran into a few of the pilgrims from St.Theresa's. We got asked to take pictures with a young footy fan with a Canadian flag. And apparently we made it onto the evening news! Add that to my 15min of fame!! After footy, Ashlie, Carlos, Damien, Kathleen, Michael and I went off in search of food. We happened upon an Italian restaurant. We were the only ones in there for the better part of are meal and were well doted on. After that, we headed back to ACU for a concert by Matt Maher. And thus concluded another great day!
This morning, we went to mass at Corpus Christi and had a nice tea after mass with the parishoners. After that, we were off to the zoo! We saw kangaroos and emus and lions and tigers and meerkats and wombats and bears and butterflies and orang-utans and elephants and giraffes. After that we headed back downtown to grab a bite before our show. We went and saw WICKED at the Regent Theatre. That is the nicest theatre I have ever been in. And WICKED was so great! And now it is WAY past my bed time and we are getting picked up at 6:30am to head to the airport and then we and 30 000 other people for here will be headed off to Sydney. Man oh man oh man! It's been such a great time so far!
# posted by Chantal @ 9:10 a.m. 
