I am taking a little time to blog before Mass.  Golly I miss daily Mass.  Anyway, since last blog, we have been up to the Rialto.  As you can see, there is a 360 degree view of the city.  If you look closely at the pictures, the bay can be seen in the upper left of the ones looking  that way.  The city goes clear around the bay, but this cannot be seen in the pics because of the clouds.  It was VERY windy that day, and I had a hard time holding the camera still enough to get a good picture.

 

Julie took me to St Patrick's Cathedral Friday.  When you look at those pictures, have your screen on bright and your room dim so the pictures do not come out real dark.  I really cannot add anything to what the pictures say.  It was an awe-inspiring visit.  Today, I am going to get courageous and take a train into the city all by myself to attend Mass at the Cathedral.  The music from that organ must be wonderful, so I hope they play it whiile I am there.

 

We also went to a display of illuminated manuscripts dating from 800 to 1600 AD.  No pictures allowed as the light breaks down the delicate old materials.  The displays were under glass casings and very dimly lit.  Illumination basically means decoration.  These are pages and books made of very thin lamb or kid skin.  The writing is done by hand using home-made inks and feather quills.  The decoration is extremely elaborate and intricate.  The labor involved was intensive, and a single book would take a person years to produce.  Therefore, books were VERY expensive.  Usually books were produced by monks in monasteries as many monks could produce a book or two per year.  More, if it were a large monastery.  They are all done in Latin since anyone educated enough to have the means to buy a book could read and write Latin.  This way, a book produced in France could be sold in England, Spain, or Germany, etc. and therefore had a wider market than a book that could be sold only in the country of origin.  Also, very few people could actually read and write in their native language.  I am continually amazed at the intricacy and balance of the writing and decoration, since there was no erasing an error.  Several of the manuscripts had gold leaf in their designs.  Absolutely breath taking!

 

We walked in the city quite a bit, so there are several miscellaneous pictures.  In Australia as a whole, about 74% of the population is of Anglo-Celtic ancestry and 19% European.  In the city, about half is European and the other half is Asian, Indian (India), and Middle-Eastern.  Many people wear the Middle-Eastern dress, especially women.  A great variety of accents can be heard from the many races represented here.  However, I have not run across one Hispanic/Latino person and only two Africans that were not white (South Africans).

 

The drivers here are at once both aggressive and polite.  They are generally careful about obeying the rules of the road, but drive fast and close together within the rules.  For instance, if you put on you ticker (turn signal), they must - and do - make room for you.  There are lots of roundabouts here, with etiquette about using your ticker in them.  They also have something called hook turns.  If you are turning right (think left, as they drive on the left) you pull all the way to the left and let everyone coming from behind AND ahead of you go before you turn.  This is so that you  do not get hit by a trolley (like San Francisco street cars), which all have the right of way and run on tracks inn the middle of the street.

 

Time to go to Mass.   I'll have Juliie read this and publish any corrections after I get back.