Tuesday morning got off to a bit of a rough start. At about 6:15 in the morning I was awakened by a long and sustained extremely high pitched sound. After a few seconds I heard theperson lying near me ask, "What is that!?!" We both got up and began to search around the room in the dark for its source. It seemed to be coming from inside the room, but we could not find it. More and more people were beginning to stir. Finally Erica woke and located its source, a malfunctioning travel alarm clock that was inside someone’s bag. She began hitting it, trying to get it to stop, and the sound fluctated but did not stop. Finally, another person took it from her and succeeeded in taking out the batteries, mercifully ending the noise that had gone on for at least three full minutes. By the time it finally ended, the only person in the room not awake was the owner of the clock, who did not move the entire time.
A little later in the morning, after we were up, dressed, and had eaten some breakfast things looked a little better. A group of us headed first toward the local post office, walking through the neighborhood to get there. It is quite an interesting neighborhood. It is quite mixed. We passed Greek stores and restaurants. The local Anglican church has mass in Mandarin Chinese. There are Vietnamese noodle shops right next to fish and chips stands. One of my favorite store names was "After-a-fashion recycled clothing store" The post office here in Australia is rather more full service than those in the States. It resembles a small Staples. In addition to selling stamps and dealing with shipping, they sell phones and phone cards, all sorts of office supplies, technology items like flash drives and external hard drives, and children’s books. The staff there was incredibly polite and patient with these clueless Americans.
From there we were off to the train and headed back toward High Park. Three of us took some time to tour the Barracks museum off the corner of the park. It is a wonderful little museum and we could have spent even more time there. It is, in its own words, a musem about itself. The building was originally constructed to serve as a convict barracks in the early nineteenth century. A few years after the transportation of convicts to Australia ended it became an immigration station for unattached women. They were permitted to live there while they sought suitable employement and a place to stay. Later, it became a home for elderly and poor women. It was converted to serve as a part of the court system. Finally, in the 1970s it became a museum. Different parts of the building are preserved in different stages of its history, to give a glimpse into each of the services it has rendered to Australia. One of the more interesting things I learned was that the transportation of convicts to New South Wales began in part because of the inability to send them to the American colonies following those colonies declaration of independence. I seem to have forgotten that part of our nation’s history that some of those coming to the new world did so as a result of criminal sentences!
We experienced the first major logistical snafu at noon on Tuesday. As a part of our pilgrim registration we had paid for several meals. We had been given meal tickets as a part of our packets on Sunday night. The books stated that lunch on Tuesday could be picked up in several locations. When we went to one of them, in Hyde Park, there was no place set up at all. After a few inquiries to some volunteers we learned that of all of the distribution locations mentioned in our books, only one was actually up and running for the day. It was not near us at all. We stopped at McDonalds. We met the rest of our American group by the Opera House at 1:00 to begin our walk to the site of the opening mass. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims were headed in the same direction. Very patient volunteers directed us, but soon we were in the midst of a human gridlock. People generally seemd to keep in good cheer. It was fun to see the flags of so many different contries all around. Groups broke into spontaneous songs and cheers all over the place. While some in the group seemed to find the experience difficult, I was pleasantly surprised that I was more patient than I would have expected. It took us over and hour and a half to walk about a mile.
Once on site it was rather chaotic as well. This was the one food site that was open, and many in our group had not eaten at all. Food tickets had to be submitted in groups of six and packets of six meals were handed out. They stood in long lines awaiting food. At one point they were slowed when a bank of microwaves that were heating the meat pies that were a part of the meals broke down.
By about 4:00 we had all made our ways to the areas assigned to us. This was an outdoor venue. I am not sure what it normally is, but it seemed to be a huge paved open area. We were sent to an area well away from the stage. We were so far away, and there were towers with speakers throughout, tht the stage and altar were not visible whatsoever. There were large video screens set up, so that it what we were able to watch. The screen nearest us was in the oppostie direction of where the altar was actually located, so we spent the entire mass facing away from it!
I must admit that I was a little disappointed by the experience. While I had approached the mass at the Telstra dome in Melbourne with some trepidation and been pleasantly surprised, I had approched this mass with relatively high expectations and been let down. I did not feel as connected to the event and it was harder to feel like an active participant in the liturgy. The groups around us were not as attentive. While not openly disrespectful, there also was a constant low buzz of converstation with people still moving about. While we had been given liturgy aides in our packets, most of the people did not sing for most of the songs. It felt very much like we were watching a performance. That was quite disappointing. I was surpised at communion time. We had been told that there would be communion stations out in the crowds, and indeed there was. But they appeared so quickly, and we were so far away from the altar, that I had to conclude that either the host had been pre-consecrated at another mass, or they had been consecratred from afar, since there is no way they could have gotten to us from the altar. Also, no matter which was the case, they had clearly been consecrated in their plastic bags. The bag had been dropped into a ciborium, and the communion minister was reaching in through a hole that had been ripped in the bag.
Once mass was over, there was a concert. It was also time for us to try to collect our dinner. It was the same drill, submit tickets in groups of six. I was one of those who had this task and I headed out, the rest of the group staying put. It was quite a distance and by the time I got to the distribution site there was a tremendous crowd. There was not really a line, and as people received their food packets they had to fight they way back through the crowd to get out. As I eventually drew nearer, it looked to me like a scence I had seen on television in the 1980s of Soviet era Russia. People were crowded against a row of tables, holding out their tickets, in the hope that the poor frantic volunteers would choose to give them a precious food packet as one became available. It was over 2 hours standing in such madness before I was one of the lucky ones and could return to the group. They were quite happy to see me, not only because I had food but because they had begun to worry about what had become of me.
After eating we left the venue. What had been an hour and a half walk earlier in the day took less than 20 minutes. The trains were wonderfully efficient, and we even had a seat. We got back to the school a little after 10:00.
Catechesis sessions begin on Wednesday. I am looking forward to them.
