Day Eleven

Day Eleven

Today is a day of leisure for us. (that word is pronounced lezhur) The plan for the morning was breakfast, followed by shopping of which I chose not to participate. Don’t worry too much though. I sent Bridget out shopping with my credit card to get tasteful souvenirs. Before the group headed out, we saw a newspaper which had great photos of Randwick and many stories about the Vigil. I offered to go to the news agency and collect papers for the group. I was intending on taking a nap, but I headed upstairs for my shoes, came down to the lobby and stood around with the group waiting for the rest of the shoppers to arrive. I looked out the lobby doors and there was the beginning of a motorcade. I ran outside to see the Pope’s motorcade coming by right in front of our hotel. Since we saw the Pope and his motorcade outside of St. Aloysius, I knew which limo was his. I stepped down off of the curb and took a few steps out into the street. I started to wave and caught the eye of the Pope!! He waved back and looked me right in the eye. I got my own personal wave from the Pope! You should have seen me. I was jumping up and down and acting totally like a kid in a candy store. We were all high-fiving, shouting, hooting, hollering. Yet another unexpected treat from World Youth Day. The last of the shoppers finally arrived and the rest of the group headed off to shop. I walked down the street, kind of on cloud nine, and headed for the news agency to get seven papers. When I got there, I also found that they had these poster kind of things that the news agent can place in an easel to advertise the current edition of the paper. I asked the news agent about that and he offered all of them to me. I got nine different posters from World Youth Day to share with our group. They are cool! I came back to the hotel and thought I would grab a nap, but I couldn’t. I blogged for a while and headed down to the internet café to post pictures. After about an hour, I came back and managed to get about a half hour nap. We all met in the lobby at 12:00 to head out for Circular Quay (pronounced Key). There we would all catch the ferry to Manly Beach. What a ride. Out in Sydney Harbour during the daylight hours. We really started to have more fun today. Afterall, we are now on vacation – no longer on a pilgrimage. Mrs. Wojcicki prceeded to sit on the boat in the section that was labeled ‘for handicapped or less mobile passengers.’ Her feet didn’t quite hit the ground. She kind of looked like the Edith Ann – the character created by Lily Tomlin. It was very funny. We got made it over to Manly and deboated. In the ferry terminal we ran across Prenger’s new profession. – the bald chocolateer. See the picture. Back tracking. I made everyone get up out of their seats to go outside for a group shot. It was here that I discovered that I was able to read Prenger’s mind. I knew exactly what he was telling me to do with my camera just be looking at his eyes. Back to Manly Wharf. We headed down the Corso toward the beach. It was kind of like Lake Geneva and Wisconsin Dells rolled into one. It was beautiful. I could have stayed there for days upon end. We walked down to the beach and headed in to wade in the water. All except Brad, Steve and Prenger. They apparently brought bathing suits and went swimming in the ocean. Full body under water. It was freezing. Only the pictures can describe the details. Everyone had a wonderful time at the beach. The adults took a walk along the beach for about half and hour. Pure heaven. I few of us broke off and walked around Manly for a bit. We shopped, ate and just had a great time. Brad and Tim each had a great time trying on different hats. The girls bought a hairnet for Prenger. Why, I’m not sure. We met back up at the gate to the beach at 4:30 where Roberta and Prenger had selected a great seaside restaurant for us to eat dinner. It was sort of a pub type place where you had to order you meal at the bar. There they handed you a beeper. When the beeper went off, you picked up your meal at the food counter. The first beeper to go off gave us all a bit of a fright. They were loud and obnoxious – but effective. I order fish pie. Was it awesome. Not healthy at all…. Cream sauce, cheeses with fish and a bread middle. People said the fish was great, the burgers were great – but huge – and made with chopped onion which made Brad go hungry. We headed back to the wharf and headed back to Sydney. We had a great ferry ride with a beautiful view of the skyline. I’m sure Chicago’s skyline is better, but unfortunately it has been many years since I have seen it from a boat late at night. There were some WYD posters reflected onto the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Cool. The kids headed to the hot tub on the roof of the hotel. What a view from there. Wow. Got to bed kind of late and had to get up early to go to the aboriginal village the next day…… More later…. Always…Tom