With 20 hours in the air between D.C. and Sydney, I planned to pray all 20 decades of the rosary on the way. As it happened, I only made it through 15—but I did fulfill my promise to pray for Dawn Patrol readers. I prayed for readers while in Sydney as well.
Arriving at Sydney airport at 7 a.m. Sunday, July 13—two calendar days after I left Washington— I cabbed it to the home of my hosts, Tim Blair and his wife Nadia. Tim, whom I met in August 2004 when he was in NYC covering the GOP convention with Reason's Matt Welch, very kindly offered to put me up when he learned I was coming to town, even though I am far less famous than the usual Americans who come to call.
After dropping my bags at Tim's and changing out of my travel clothes, I trekked to St. Mary's Cathedral for Sunday Mass. The celebrant was none other than Auxiliary Bishop Holley of my own archdiocese, making me feel strangely at home upon arriving halfway across the world.
Back at Tim's, I fell into a deep sleep until evening, when Tim took me to meet a couple of his friends at a fabulous seafood restaurant across the harbor from downtown Sydney. It was in a posh development that looked like a more gorgeous version of Georgetown Harbor, only it was called something like Woolamaroo. Australia is very New World in its place names—every locality either has a terribly British-sounding designation, like Middlesex, or an aboriginal name, like Hopatcong. Oh, wait, those are places in New Jersey. But you get the idea.
To be continued ... still have jet lag ... must get sleep ...
