Map from The Great Circle Mapper

Up and packed and then had breakfast in the hostel café before checking out. We had a wander round Chinatown and the Sunday market before going to Mass at Christ Church St. Lawrence. The church is lovely. It has a lovely set of paintings for stations of the cross. The wall behind the high altar has a beautiful set of paintings showing the twelve disciples and Christ in heaven and underneath them the symbols of the four evangelists.

The celebrant had to wear a cope as chasubles are banned in Sydney. There were three sacred ministers, all in birettas, a choir and a gaggle of servers. The choir were in black and white and the servers in red and white. The choir sat in the side chapel, looking rather like they were in a cage.

The service began with an introit followed by asperging. We stood for the Kyries but sat for the Gloria which I found rather odd. The Kyries also came before the prayer of confession which came a lot later in the service. The first hymn was the offertory hymn. Anything that could be sung was. At the the incarnation in the creed everybody genuflected. The service finished with the Angelus.

After the service people were very nice and friendly. I had an interesting chat with a woman who is in the final year of a theology degree and considering ordination. In Australian it seems to be Reform that are the leading anti-women priests, they don't seem to have a Forward in Faith equivalent, or at least they are a bigger minority in the Catholic movement in the Anglican Church of Australia than they are in the Church of England.

After that we headed to the airport for lunch in the business class lounge. We had some problems checking in as it only wanted to give us tickets to Kuala Lumper. Eventually we were sorted and through security, where Andrew got radiation scanned. Lunch was cold meat, cheese, salmon, butternut and pumpkin soup and bread. All provided for free in the lounge. Business Class travel is so nice, I could get used to this lifestyle. Once on the plane (flight OS2) we had a four course meal and then a two course meal before we landed at Kuala Lumpur and then another four course meal when we left Kuala Lumpur, by which point I was so full I could hardly eat. The flight seemed to go on for ever, nothing existed except the droning of the engines and the pacman game on the in flight entertainment system.

Eventually we landed in Vienna and had a short break in the lounge before flying to Munich (flight OS111) and our second breakfast of the day. A short break in the lounge there and we were on the final stage home (flight LH4910)and our third breakfast of the day.

As usual at Birmingham International no attention was paid to priority tags, Geoff was there with the taxi when we came out and got home at the end of our world tour at around 10:30am.

Day 20    Back to Index