Today, I went on a bit of adventure. I took the bus in and out of the city by myself to visit the JPII Center! I've never been much of a user of public transport, and I'm in an unfamiliar place, so when I got back home around 4:45 this afternoon without getting lost, I was feeling pretty pleased with myself.
Public transportation, while certainly more of a hassle than driving, is really quite a good way to get around in Sydney. The bus network is pretty extensive and the busses come frequently, and so far I've been able to get the student rate for all my fares even though I technically don't qualify for it because I'm not enrolled at any of the universities. This makes the buses convenient, affordable, and the walking involved just made me feel like I was getting myself places in a more independent way than a car. It's hard to describe. Plus, you don't have to find parking, and its better for the environment. Win-win, really. I wish using RIPTA was more of a feasible option back home in RI. Alas.
I spent most of the morning talking to Beth and Rita who work at the chaplaincy about their programs and telling them a bit about the programs we have back at PC. At USyd, their main programs are bible studies (a few times a week), a barbeque (free, weekly), daily Mass, and the weekly lunchtime forum, which is the thing I'm going to be speaking at during week 3. Thursday is "UTS day" - there is Mass and a bible study there. When Sr. Mary Madeline was here, she ran a program at USyd called "Mere Catholicism" and and a similar program at UTS. Rita wasn't sure if the new sisters would continue it.
During our conversation, I became even more aware of a cultural difference between the US and Australia that I already noticed - the lack of residential students. The University of Sydney has some residential colleges, but Notre Dame has none, and the situation at other Aussie unis is the same - most students commute. This means that students pop in to campus for class but don't hang around; usually they have a long commute and are also trying to balance a job. For campuses right in the city like USyd, Notre Dame, and UTS, the lure to go off campus when you don't have class is even stronger. This means that most of the programming that the chaplaincies do has to be during the lunch hour or sometimes in the early afternoon; otherwise, no one will come to anything. This rather limits their opportunities for outreach. Another big problem is the postering battle. They devote a pretty significant amount of time every day to putting up posters because people sometimes cover them up or take them down within in minutes! Sometimes its out of opposition, but other times its just for want of the advertising space. Beth was telling me that a lot of USyd Catholics go through four years of university without ever knowing that there even is a Catholic chaplaincy. Part of the reason is that the JPII center isn't actually on campus; its across the street in a store front. It's not officially recognized by the university as something students can be involved with because its technically run by the archdiocese. There is a Catholic students society that is officially affiliated with the university, and they work closely with the chaplaincy, so that helps. At orientation, the chaplaincy gets a little stall in the corner of the an activities fair, so its hard to get the word out. A few times a week, they set up an "evangelization stall" somewhere on campus where they advertise in person for events and talk to students. Another problem is that when they do have events on campus, they don't have any consistent location, so it can be students who want to go to find daily Mass, etc.
We went down to St. Benedict's for 12:35pm Mass, and this was great because it was the first time that I've been to Mass in this country and not been freezing. Small things make life a lot better. After lunch, we got sandwiches at Subway and went back to the chaplaincy to eat, which was followed by more tea! Justin, the president of the Catholic Society of St. Peter joined us for lunch (we met up with him at St. Ben's) and we spent a while talking. He is doing an Honors year at USyd (In Australia, an honors year is a year of special study that you do after your bachelor's degree, including a 20,000 word "mini-thesis" - the goal is to make yourself look more appealing to graduate schools, a feeling that I'm sure is rather familiar to a few of my friends back home) in some sort of criminal/legal sociology in preparation for law school, which will hopefully also be at USyd. He took me over to campus and pointed out a few buildings of interest, including the library, the student union, and the main building/quadrangle, which looks like the colleges at a few of the universities with which I am aesthetically smitten (Oxford, Yale, etc.). The university is an old one with a proud history and a good reputation - founded in the 1800s - and so there's quite an interesting mix of architecture.
One delightful surprise that I found when I was exploring the main building was a little museum named for a former vice-chancellor (I think that's like a president) of the uni, Charles Nicholson. Nicholson apparently did a lot of Eyptian exploration and came back with a lot of treasures. There was a room of mummies and sarcophaguses (it was called "Travels with Herodotus," who several readers will remember is just my favorite historian ever), and a featured exhibit called "Beauty and Betrayal: Classical and Neo-classical Jewelry". There was a lot beautiful gold, a display on the sort of jewelry Helen of Troy would have worn, several statues, a lot of Greek red figure and black figure pottery, and some displays about the revival of classical architecture. It reminded me a lot of the collection (although smaller) at the British Museum, which I saw when I went to London freshman year. I appreciated Civ (read: Dr. Drogula!) once again this afternoon since I knew enough about Greek and Roman art and architecture to enjoy this exhibit with more than just a passing appreciation. Oh, I can't wait to go to Greece in March. What a life!
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