Kia Ora!

Hi - Kia Ora is Maori, a greeting that means good health, hello, goodbye, etc. I'm bummed because I had quite a long post from Tuesday that apparently got deleted, so let me summarize that first.

We had an awesome time at the Vigil. We walked several kilometers to Randwick Racecourse, the site of the Papal Mass. Our assigned space was right next to the dirt race path. We had a very cold, but good campout, and enjoyed the candlelight vigil. On Sunday, the Pope did a lap of the race track in the Popemobile, so we were about 10 feet away from him! Mass was good, but long. Nick and I did Sydney Bridgeclimb later that night as well! On Monday, we went for a day tour of the Blue Mountains, and visited a Wildlife Park where we got to pet koalas and kangaroos. We also went on a Harbour dinner cruise.

On Tuesday, we flew to Auckland, New Zealand. Yesterday, (Wednesday) we drove down to Rotorua. We saw the amazingly beautiful countryside, and got to take a gondola to Skyway rides - we got to luge down a mountainside. Very cold, but very, very fun. That night, we went to a traditional Maori dinner, called a hangi, and saw traditional dancing. Today we continued in Rotorua, with visits to a cultural village and thermal springs, then back to Auckland.

Tomorrow's our last day in Auckland, we leave for the airport tomorrow night!

Well, just use your imagination...

Photos aren't uploading right now, so I'll add them later. You'll just have to sit by your computer with bated breath.

We saw the Pope, and he was this big...

Hello all! We are having a great experience here in Sydney. World Youth Day officially opened with a Mass by the water on Tuesday. We went to catechesis sessions Wednesday, and had a gathering with other pilgrims from the Archdiocese of Detroit. We both saw several students there, which was a lot of fun. On Thursday, we went to a ceremony welcoming Pope Benedict. He traveled by "boat-a-cade" to Barangaroo (the ceremony site). There were lots of flags waving, and people from all over the place. We were pretty far back, but if you stood on your tiptoes, and looked in just the right spot, you could see...a dot. On Friday, we went to catechesis run by L'Arche in Australia - truly amazing. L'Arche houses are all over the world - they're communities of people with visible mental disabilities, and those without visible disabilities living together in community. The picture I've posted is the woman who did the first reading at Mass that day - in Braille. The bishop who did the catechesis that day was a very powerful speaker, and spoke to the group of such a wonderful vision of what it means to be church, missioned to the world. In the evening, we went to Taize prayer, which was just awesome. Today we're getting ready to leave for our pilgrimage walk to Randwick Racecourse, the site of tomorrow's papal Mass. We'll be camping out, which will be an adventure. It's been about 70 degrees Farenheit during the day, but it gets very chilly when the sun goes down. I've been under the weather the past couple of days (I think my body thinks it's fall, so I have my annual fall sinus problems and cough, but things are looking up - Australians have good drugs.) The last picture is just for smiles - when I looked at this sign quickly, it looked like it was advertising for the "Internation Wang Chung Academy" -Love and prayers to all!

We blog from a land down under...

Where women go and men plunder... Now that that's in your head, hello from Australia! We had good flights (very, very long, but good), and are in the middle of our first full day (Monday) in Sydney. The weather is beautiful-chilly in the morning, but once the sun really comes out, it's very pleasant. There are lots of groups here for World Youth Day from all sorts of places. As we waited for our credentials this morning, the kids sang and cheered with groups from Spain and New Zealand. World Youth Day events get started officially tomorrow (Tuesday). Continue to keep us in prayer, as we continue to pray for all of you! Love, Alison :-)

Really?

So, I just got off the phone with a pleasant woman from Air New Zealand. I guess it's better that we had this conversation tonight instead of in LAX on Friday, but they don't allow knitting needles in carry-on luggage at all. The ones that I'm using for my current baby blanket project (for a friend, not for me!) are the same size as the middle ones in the photo. Completely terrifying and dangerous, right?

Peoples is peoples...

Nick and I went with Andrea to see "Muppets Take Manhattan" at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor. Very cool to see a movie I've been able to practically recite for 15 years on the big screen. My favorite part (still): the movie theater in Ohio, with Swedish Chef and the 3D popcorn, and Lew Zealand with his boomerang fish...