Hopefully this is the right forum for this question.  If I could better form my query I would just search wiki for an answer but I'm not smart enough to know what questions to ask.

What I'd really like is an old-style flowchart of the the whole process.  If such a thing exists, please link me!  I can't read code so...there ya go.

So...I start my bitcoin client.  It starts making connections. 

Who is it communicating with?  How does that communication work?  Is it connecting to a central bitcoin ip address?

Help me phrase the question if my question doesn't make sense.