Say It Again

October 3, 2001-Acronyms

Contacting the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgendered) community was as easy as looking in the phone book. It was listed under Gay Counseling. The number turned out to be in Brisbane at an AIDS center. PFLAG (Parents, Friends, and Family of Lesbians and Gays) has an office there. We're scheduled to be the program for their meeting on Oct. 13. There’s a chapter in Gold Coast and we should have information about them soon. We’ll let you know how it goes.

I mistakenly called the GST a government sales tax. It’s a goods and services tax. It’s only a year old and people are feeling the effects. There was an article in the paper that restaurants in Brisbane are closing or lowering prices in an attempt to attract customers. People are belt tightening on eating out.

The GST applies to almost everything and they now have less disposable income. The GST is 9-10%. Fortunately for us, we can get it back when we leave. We’re saving receipts like crazy. The article went on to say that others are of the opinion that business has fallen off because of the Ansett Airline crisis, decrease in tourism, and failure in the stock market.

Things are falling into place for our Cairns/Ayres Rock/ Alice trip. We booked a one-way car hire from the Rock to “the Alice”, as they call it. We avoided one-way fees by booking for 3 days with Thrifty. They give you limited mileage (or do they say kilometerage?). It’s 450km between the two locales and King’s Canyon is between them. We hope to add that to our sightseeing and our mileage. Fortunately we got an RACQ discount. That’s Royal Auto Club Queensland (e.g. AAA).

Understanding the confirmation number was another story. The woman I was speaking to had a thick accent and spoke rapidly. She tried to be helpful as she rattled off numbers and letters. When she said, “Pay as in Pater , X as in X-roy, and J as in Jewleet) it threw me. We reviewed it together several times in American and Australian until we were both satisfied that I had the right code. By the way, it was Peter, X-ray, Juliet. I mentioned that Juliet was an unusual choice and I might have said, “J as in John.” She replied that they all use standard common words to clarify the letters. Maybe Juliet is a common name here.

Combos

Another word about strange food combos. Avocado and beet root (just plain beets to us) is added to sandwiches no matter the rest of the ingredients. I’ve seen it on burgers, turkey, etc. An everything burger or “burger with the lot” means the patty, an egg, beet root, bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato, avocado, and onion. A trucker’s brekkie at one place included liver, black pudding, steak, bacon, sausage, chips, egg, fried tomato (and you thought it was Southern), and toast. Gag!

Toby