"i want a lollie!"

i heard a tiny child say that today in an aussie accent... it was great. "lollies" are not just suckers... lollies are all candy. i love it! for one of our assignments for my asc class we have to go to 4 different types of churches: anglican, catholic, assemblies of God, and uniting. for some reason the ultimate catholic mass with the pope didn't count, so today a few of us decided we might as well go big and we went to a mass at st. mary's cathedral, this huge, gorgeous church in the middle of the city. apparently it's like THE big catholic church in australia, and the bishop is the head bishop of the whole country or something. anyways... it was beautiful inside and i felt like i stepped back in time, so naturally it seemed like everyone should have snooty british accents. then the bishop (priest? i don't actually know what he's called... i think it really is the bishop) started talking and he really did have a snooty sounding voice! and he's australian, so he had an accent. i had to keep reminding myself that he actually talks like that and he wasn't just thinking the same way i was and faking it... but then afterwards everyone was taking FOREVER to get out of the doors, and i was wondering why, but once we got out there i realized that it was because the bishop was standing outside and everyone was shaking his hand! so i figured what a great photo op, and i got brittany to wait and take my picture following the crowd and shaking his hand. but then i got up there and realized i have no idea what you're supposed to say in that situation, so i just smiled. maybe it was obvious that i'm not from here, or maybe he thought i was one of the leftover wyd pilgrims, because he asked me where i was from. i told him colorado and he got really happy and went, "denver?" i said no, but close, and he said, "well great! give me regards to bishop something or other! (he said a real name but i can't remember what it was...)" i said, "ok!" haha... sorry head bishop of australia. needless to say, now i can tell people that i've met and had a conversation with the most important catholic man in australia. woohoo!

and guess what i found out tonight during dinner! my host parents used to run a frickin cookie-baking business! like a legit, selling for profit, had a factory cookie business! and their cookies are GOOD! there was a whole jar of them in our flat when we got here, and they were gone within like 4 days. mmmmm...