HTTP question about style sheets (not really a core PHP question)

Okay it's not really PHP but I figure someone will know this one and save me tracking down exactly how it works. If I have a Web page with a .css link in it, ie <link rel="stylesheet" href="/cgi-bin/styles/mystyle.css"> At what point in the client request is this made ? My gut feeling is that the request for a page is made and then the browser works out that it should load this link and makes another GET request. Basically I would have thought it was the same as the way images load, in that the browser first retrives the page then parses it and loads each src="...." image in it. If this is right, how come the syntax is a href link, not a src one ? Also if I have a PHP page that retrieves info from another site (via fopen or fsockopen), will it still be up to the browser to make another request and if it does, will it make it to the PHP page that fetched the page or directly to the off site link style sheet ? Hopefully the explanation makes enough sense that someone knows what I'm asking. Nick