Day To Day

January 17, 2002-Bye Bye Tasmania

“Yehs, Mmmmm.” Those are the sounds you’re likely to hear when a group of Australians are acknowledging something that’s been said or agreeing with it. I noticed it more among Tasmanians. It takes on a cow-like quality. If you can imagine Borden’s Elsie the cow lowing her ascent, you will have the sound. It becomes a bit unnerving after awhile & I found it hard not to get the giggles, or worse, join in & try to imitate them.

As we lifted off from Tasmania, we left knowing that we’d done them a great service. Millions of bugs died on the windshield of our rental car so that we could see Tasmania. We’d driven a bit over 1,000 miles in six days. We thought our departure would be a repeat of our flight to Melbourne. The departure screen listed a flight delay due to “investigating an oil spill.” There it was on the TV monitor for all the passengers to see. I’d never known an airline to do that. But, that wasn’t our flight. We ran into a snag at security when I’d forgotten to pack my fingernail scissors in the suitcase. I refused to relinquish them since they were mine since I was a baby. Sentiment aside, we had to convert one of our carry on bags to checked luggage so the scissors could ride in the belly of the plane.

The flights went well, but we learned a bit more than we needed to know from a flight attendant about Qantas cost cutting. They’re no longer printing an in flight magazine, so the one at our seats is now a collector’s item. I dutifully collected it & refrained from doing the crossword puzzle. We were told that the “barf bags” were going to be the only thing left to read. They can now serve the original purpose or can double as mail –in order envelopes for film developing. Talk about multi-tasking. At the top of the bag it says, “This photo bag can also be used for Motion Sickness. Please take this bag with you and pass it on to family or friends if you are unable to use.” We almost rolled out of our seatbelts with laughter.

“Stroke of Good Luck With Sex.” That was the title of an article in the newspaper today. The article was unremarkable & talked about how middle-aged men should have sex several times a week to help avoid strokes. Then I got to the part that said, “ And they don’t need to worry about heart attacks from any extra bonking either.” I love the way they don’t mince words here.
January 18, 2002-Innovations

An interesting thing happened this morning. A woman who had chosen Judaism & who’d gone through the conversion ceremony three weeks ago had her bat mitzvah today. She read from the Torah. Hebrew reading is a requirement for conversion in Australia. She prepared the passage easily & well. She was thrilled to do so & is willing to be one of the lay people who read Torah when there’s no rabbi. She asked a woman who is studying for conversion to sing a song at the oneg (reception) that followed. No one knew this, but the woman sings professionally, reads Hebrew, & has a repertoire of Israeli & liturgical numbers at her fingertips. Both of the women are in their 40’s & will be able to help the aging (70’s) laity who now conduct the service. It’s amazing to think that both are Jews by choice & women.

The battery in the ancient Mitsubishi died. The car wouldn’t start after services this morning. David called the RACQ (Royal Auto Club of Queensland). He expected them to start the car & then he’d go to K-Mart for a battery. Well, it seems that the RACQ carries car batteries with them & installs them. It may have cost a bit more, but it’s a nice service.

We’re almost at the 2/3 mark. We have 2 ½ months to go in Oz & then we'll take a month of travel coming home. We’ll probably start shipping things back in March. We were told it takes twelve weeks from Australia to the U.S. Of course, we were told it takes 4-6 weeks from the U.S. to Australia. That turned out to be eoght weeks. I wonder if we’ll have more to send back than we shipped? We haven’t been buying much of anything here & have used up a lot of the things we shipped.

January 20, 2002-Nice Treat

I didn’t realize that even state schools here aren’t really totally free. Many of them require uniforms & the students have to buy their books. The cost can reach as high as $A 3000 in extras for public high school. You can’t figure it would be half in U.S. dollars, because the people here are living on Australian dollars & incomes. Their salaries are comparable to ours only in Aussie dollars. So, $3,000 is $3,000. It’s hard to get aid for school fees. There are no non-sectarian private schools, so Jewish kids going to private schools outside of Melbourne & Sydney go to church schools.

We had a nice surprise today. David was conducting his adult education this morning when a member of the congregation came in & asked me if we’d like to go out on their boat after class. They had come to Temple by boat. It was docked at a nearby marina. Of course, we accepted. There are more canals here than in Venice & the ones here don’t stink. We headed down the Nerang River for Marina Mirage at the Spit for lunch. The Nerang is a salt-water river &, yes, there are sharks in it. We cruised past homes that were what dreams are made of & quite modest places. We even passed a campground & a waterside mobile home park. We took a walk through the Sheraton & Versace Palace Hotel lobbies to gawk. The Versace was very gaudy. It had faux columns, faux marble, & a faux beach at the pool. The Sheraton was like walking into a dream fantasy. It was bright, airy & simply furnished. Straight ahead was a three-story floor to ceiling glass wall looking out onto a huge blindingly blue swimming pool. The view continued & led the eye out to the ocean beyond. It looked as if the waves were rolling into the pool. The sea & pool seemed to be of one piece & seductively drew the viewer into the depths.

David is watching a cricket match on TV now. The poor guy is desperate. He really thinks he will never get to see one in person. Since he doesn’t have a clue about how the game works, I suggested getting a library book so he could watch the TV & look up the terminology. I guess he could also look it up online.

Toby