Moving It

October 22-23, 2001-Getting Around

I was a big girl on Sunday morning and took a public bus all by myself. I got all the information from Jennerette, the deportee from Israel who is studying for conversion. I was going to drive David to Sunday school so I could have the car to go to Temple at noon for the brown bag lunch lecture series. I decided to sleep late and take the bus instead. It worked out very well, but the fares are expensive. They charge by zones and I went from one zone to another. It cost $A 2.10 for a short ride. The public transportation system here is very good and it would be easy to manage without a car. There are bus passes that make fares more reasonable.

We ate lunch in a little café tucked away behind a strip shopping center overlooking a canal. I knew it had to be good since no one but locals could find it and it was very busy. We had the best sandwiches we’ve eaten here and learned that Bap is a chiabata roll. Need you know more? David almost ordered a hamburger on one, but the definition wasn’t made clear by the server. We later saw a burger come to a neighboring table and now we know.

Eating Companions

It was a sad day in Australia. The Aussies “farwelled” the troops going to Afghanistan. It was also a boring day for me. I volunteered at the National Council for Jewish Women’s “Op Shop.” It’s a resale shop. It’s in Surfer’s Paradise in a narrow corridor of a passageway that leads to the beach. It’s across from both a sandwich bar and a Korean restaurant. The smells were unimaginable. Add to that the odors from the yet to be washed donations of clothing and I thought my nose wouldn’t stop running. I was picked up at 10 AM and we worked until 3:30 pm. I was told to bring my lunch but to be careful about where I kept it until it was time to eat. They have a roach problem. Sure enough, one little trooper marched across the floor just to prove them right.

Dinner last night was at the home of one set of Marcus’s grandparents. He’s now 15 months old and his parents are still trying to get pregnant. He and his parents were there along with Hiroko, the chopped liver and challah eating Japanese exchange student. I don’t know how much English she understands, but she’s been here five weeks and has two more weeks before going home. The conversation couldn’t have been more uncomfortable. They talked disparagingly about an orthodox Jewish man and his Philipino wife. They made remarks about Chinese and Japanese and discussed a popular TV program called Changi. Changi was a Japanese POW camp where 22,000 Australian troops were detained and 14, 000 survived. Nothing they said was awful or anti-Asian, but I wondered what she was thinking as she heard, and most probably recognized, those words and names.

October 23, 2001-Planning Ahead

We spent the better part of today making air reservations to Perth and New Zealand. Ron & Karen Cimini are coming in February and we may use a motor home to get around New Zealand with them. If they’re not up to that much togetherness, we’ll rent one for after they leave when we go on to the South Island. When we were at Qantas getting everything in order, our travel agent, William, mentioned that he was going to New Zealand with his partner to visit family. David whipped out one of our PFLAG cards and William really liked what it said. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, it has PFLAG Akron information on one side and on the back it says, “Your business has just been supported by the relative or friend of a gay man or lesbian. We will continue to support businesses that do not discriminate against them.” He told us that it wasn’t until eight years ago that Qantas gave spousal equivalency benefits to gay and straight partners. We told him how far ahead of the U.S. that was. We asked him about the Mardi Gras in Sydney on March 25. He told us that about 1 million attend and 40,000 march. We want to go, but may have trouble getting a room.

When in Australia, one never knows when one will run into a Japanese wedding. I walked into a hotel in Surfers to use the rest room and there was the bride in all her finery at 2:00 pm on a Tuesday. It’s amazing the business they do here in the Las Vegas of the Southern Hemisphere.

Toby