Getting Around

Every day we've been setting out to find different things and learn how to get there. Sometimes it's just about finding a place that sells chicken 'n chips, and sometimes it's about the more important places. Orientation and enrolment started right away this week, so finding the path to school was a high priority. The University of Sydney is fairly large, and has a mixture of old classic buildings as well as more modern (and some are downright funky) buildings. But the oldest part of campus, the "Main Quadrangle" is what makes it famous. And it really is a cool building.
The university is the oldest in Australia, and uses some kind of sandstone for the walls. It has a bunch of gargoyles and the main hall looked like the one in Harry Potter. Expelliarmus!

Jett's too cool for school.

The only other soul known to us in all of Australia is one of my (Todd's) old friends from high school. Well, to be precise, we haven't spoken since high school, but before leaving to Australia, I found out that she lived in Sydney. We got to talking and she hooked us up with some sweet baby stuff to borrow, including a portable baby cott, a high chair, and a stroller. It was a life saver, so thanks Kim.
Jett made some good use out of the high chair the first night. Wait...what is he eating, anyway?
Today we set out on a different adventure, and Jett was ready for it. However, none of us were ready for the heat that set in late in the afternoon. We wanted to find the temple and also ask about what ward we belonged in. We had tried searching online, but the LDS Meetinghouse Locator kept on saying there was an error and wouldn't tell us to which ward we belonged. So, thinking that was good enough a reason, Christianne and I set out. With a little study, Christianne found out that we would need to catch a train and then a bus in order to get there - and we had never taken the bus. But we braved it anyway and got pretty close to where we wanted to go. However, we missed the stop closest to the temple and ended up having to walk extra in the tiring heat. By the time we got to the temple gates, we were sweating. Christianne joked how ironic it would be if the temple was closed as we arrived.

It was.

So, leaving Christianne and Jett in some shade, I set off to find someone - anyone who could tell us what ward we belonged to and maybe get some water. The Church owns quite a few buildings in the area, including temple accommodation, family history center, Australian church offices, family services center, etc. etc. As I passed each building, I noticed each one was closed, except for one more building I came up to: the Sydney Australia Mission Office. "Yes! Elders!!" I thought, and sure enough they were there. I ran back to Christianne and Jett, nearly passing them in my haste, and brought them back to the mission office. The Elders gave us some cold water and we all had a good time chatting about the Church in Sydney. We found out our ward, along with some other contacts on how to get there. Turns out the area we are staying got combined with another ward (hence the technical issues we were experiencing before.) Before finding our bus back to the train station, we managed to take some photos outside the Sydney Temple.

Jett is so glad to be there!

I mean REALLY glad! He is always so good about smiling.

Tomorrow we will go to our first church meetings in Australia. We got in contact with some ward members who offered to give us a ride over. We're excited to see what it's like.