Postcards from the city

Today's city is Sydney. If I was to send postcards today, here's what I would write on them. Maybe I should just tweet, but thought I'd write my thoughts in one place today.

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Why is the toilet paper's placement in relation to the toilet only functional for members of Cirque du Soleil?

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Gee whiz, the shower caps are shrinking! Or maybe my hair is getting bigger.

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I wish I knew how those unmarked mixer taps in the shower worked. All I know, is that one direction is boiled chicken and the other is goosebumps. It's always too late when I work it out.

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Walking through the park back to the hotel today, everyone was lying around and kissing each other. Not the homeless people though. They weren't kissing each other.

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There's a messaging function on the television in my hotel room. I'm scared the TV will start messaging me. Hang on...it says "massaging". What...?

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I pull the curtains back and gaze through the filthy windows. I am on the sixth floor. Over the road, five storeys up, a small Asian man is tethered to an unseen point inside the building. He is wearing tennis shoes and carrying a window. He hunches forward as he passes a column which leaves him with mere inches of space on the awning. He clutches the window. It is taller and wider than he is. I wait for him to fall. He doesn't. 

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At a busy intersection, my chances of hailing a cab should be good. After ten minutes I reassess. After fifteen minutes I start seeing things. I open the rear passenger door after I've seen the driver nod and the car stops. A startled Japanese woman squeals and recoils at the dangerous beast breaking into her cab. The light was red.

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An empty cab arrives. The driver is displeased. He complains. About traffic. About driving a taxi. About the weather. About me. About turning right. I insist. He complains when I pay him. Poor man. He no longer knows what is good.

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After walking through the park, I took these pictures of important Latin American men:

© 2015 divacultura

© 2015 divacultura

© 2015 divacultura

Stuff is getting smarter and people are getting dumber

Just say you got into a taxi. What's the first thing you're going to say, after "hello" if you're feeling friendly? It's going to be the name of the destination. Surely taxi drivers are aware of this?

After a bumpy flight, the transit through the terminal to the baggage carousel, out to the cab rank, on my big yellow square marked with the number "12" and into a taxi done in under 10 minutes, I thought the vibe would continue.

"Hello. I need to go to the Such and Such hotel on George Street please."

"Where do you want to go please?"

Good grief! Is it any wonder they've made Smart Televisions that take dictation and then send a transcript to ASIO. What I wouldn't give for one of them to be driving my taxi right now, I thought! I'd put my own bag in the boot too.

"The Such and Such hotel on George Street please."

"Where?"

"It's in Haymarket. Hang on, I'll get the street number for you."

"Could you give me the street number please?"

After a sigh that blew the windscreen out, I told him.

"Oh. It's in the Haymarket!"

Seriously.

I called my friend JC (no, not the Messiah). It was essential I do this to preserve the well-being of the driver. Our conversations are exactly like Crabb and Sales on their podcast, except no one else is listening to us. We've been friends since before music theatre summer school and can't understand why we're not stars of breakfast radio or variety television. Anyway, I was so entertained by our conversation about writing, satire, reality TV and Twitter, that I forgot to notice where the driver was going. After the extended instructions I'd given and his epiphanic confirmation at the end, I was confident we'd get there.

Something JC said bored me for a moment and I looked out the window. I was coming from the other side of town. Then I looked at the taxi metre.

"Um, the hotel is over there! Not over here!"

"Oh, you want to go to the Such and Such hotel?" he asked as if I had never mentioned where I wanted to go.

I paid the grossly inflated fare and walked to the hotel.

The carpet was the first thing that hit me when I opened the door to my room. It's like one of those 3D pictures that you stare at for ages and then either see something or faint from dizziness. The carpet is having the latter effect.

I went straight for the airconditioner and was suddenly nervous. It has a PLASMA screen and three pages of instructions on how to use it. I'm sure it doubles as surveillance - that's not a screen, it's a two-way mirror. It might be a smart airconditioner, but it's still too hot in here and it's one of those rooms that is hermetically sealed.

Meanwhile, everything is so minimally designed, I can't find the bed. Or the mini bar.

Can you see the hidden picture?
© 2014 divacultura

Where to look when your driver answers a call of nature.

My regular cab driver sent a back up to pick me up on Monday morning.  I was heading interstate for work again and needed to meet a colleague for breakfast at 7am before our 8am flight.  With the end of daylight savings, I had been awake long before my 5:45am alarm, so I was waiting out the front when the cab pulled up on time at 6:30am.

Traffic was flowing pretty easily until we were about 15 minutes from the airport and then we slowed to a crawl.  I would be about 15 minutes late for the meeting with my colleague but as I had no checked baggage I was relaxed about the flight.

As we neared the airport my driver asked me whether I wanted to be dropped off upstairs at the departures terminal or downstairs at arrivals.  When I saw the carpark going up the ramp to the departures hall, knowing I would have to travel all the way to the end of the road, I was pleased I had opted to go downstairs.

About three minutes from drop off something unusual happened.  The driver turned to me in the back seat and said he just needed to pull over for one minute.  I heard something beeping in the car and thought perhaps he needed to switch the car's fuel sources or something.  Given I was so close to my destination my face must have conveyed a quizzical feeling.  "Is that okay?" he asked me.

"Is everything all right?" I asked.

"I just need to pull over for one minute. Is that okay?"

"What's the problem? Can it wait until after you've dropped me off?"  We were in heavy traffic on a freeway and I wasn't clear about how or where pulling over would be achieved.

"Just one minute.  Okay?"

I decided to be more direct.  "What's the problem?"

Pause.

"I am busting for a wee. Is that okay?"

How to answer that question.

"Okay with you?" he prompted.

"Mate, I don't think I have much say in it and I don't think my approval is the main consideration."

"Is that okay?"

"Off you go."  Why was I suddenly in the role of primary school teacher?

I averted my eyes.  (It's not clear to me what the etiquette is in this situation, but instincts told me not to look anywhere.)  I stared at the dashboard and noticed that the metre was still running.  Getting paid to take a whizz is a pretty good lurk, especially in this situation.

As he got back in the car, he averted his eyes, but was in a chatty mood.

"Sorry about that.  I hope it's okay with you.  The traffic is very heavy and has taken a lot longer and I just couldn't hang on any longer."

I don't want to talk about it now!  Stop!

Two minutes later I was  greeting my colleague.  It must have been bad that he couldn't hang on for a couple more minutes.  I really don't want to bond with my taxi driver in that way.  Especially first thing on Monday morning.  I suppose it could have been worse.  He could have had a bottle and just gone where he sat.  Where does one look then? How do you listen to something else...? Perhaps I should write a modern etiquette book.

What's the most unusual or annoying thing you've encountered in a taxi?

Mining boom commuter lounge

The destinations on the departure board are unfamiliar - Karratha, Cloudbreak, Solomon Islands - and I am the odd person out, not dressed in navy blue work pants, a high-visibility vest (orange or yellow) and heavy work boots.  The women are dressed like this too, but they wear thongs on their feet.  It's 5am on Wednesday morning in the departures hall of the Perth domestic airport and it's peak hour.

The crowds of people waiting to check in at the kiosk make me very pleased that I've checked in online and that I have electronic bag tags.  I still have to queue at the bag drop, but I'm ready to join the next line in a matter of two minutes.  Modern travel is the experience of waiting in a succession of  lines.  No thrill or glamour there.

The queue to get through security is long, but it moves swiftly.  There are few delays as the people going through are experienced.  The routine of undoing belts, removing jewellery, taking coins and keys out of pockets doesn't happen here. The experienced travellers have come dressed so that they can just walk straight through.  I realise that this is why women are wearing thongs - it saves them having to take the their boots off at the security screening point.  The men wearing boots have already got the laces undone and slip them off like slippers when the time comes.

For once in my life, I am not randomly selected for random explosives screening.  They are too busy with everyone else.

Once in the waiting area of the airport, I notice some new retail shops have opened - surfwear and handbags.  I wonder how business is.  Yes, there are more people coming through the airport, but for most of them it looks like the same experience as catching a train to work - a regular routine that gets them to where they're going.  The lovely handbags look out of place in a world of heavy duty back packs.

Extra banks of chairs have also been installed and they are filled with people waiting for flights.

My journey to the airport was unconventional - a taxi screeched to a halt and the driver got out and said he would take me too to make sure I didn't miss my flight.  He already had a passenger on board, but there were 60 jobs waiting and not enough taxis to go around.  I appreciated his initiative and he explained that he manages cabs and sees things differently from the average driver.

My fellow commuter was flying back to Brisbane and works for a mining company.  He had previously worked in the mines themselves, but now is happy to have a desk job.  I learnt all about "hot shifts" (where the mine operates continuously, workers arrive and pick up where the last shift leaves off) and we talked about how the world could be better organised.

Our driver was intent on efficiency and proudly pointed out the areas of traffic congestion which he had neatly avoided for us.  As they dropped me at the kerb, both the driver and fellow passenger wished me a safe journey home.

You never know who you'll meet and what you'll learn.  That is the true joy of travelling even the shortest distance.

Up, up and away - musings of a frequent flyer

Written on 20 September 2012 - posting tonight due to broadband failure....

I wake up three times during the night, thinking it can't be time to get up yet.  The first time it's 11:50pm - definitely not.  The second time it's 2:45 am - not quite.  The third time it's 4:30am and it is time.  It's been a while since I had to catch an early flight like this for work and I remember that I don't like it.

My cab driver will collect me at 5:15am.  It's too early to eat.  Despite my aim to go to be early, I turn the light out at 11pm.  That IS early for me.  I've packed and laid out the clothes I'll be wearing today the night before.  I sleepwalk to the shower which wakes me momentarily but thirty minutes later my eyes have that sandy, tired feeling.  I make my way through the airport in a haze. One minute the queues to get through security are enormous; when I look again there are no queues.  I walk through and continue to stake my claim to the title of "woman most swabbed for explosive residue at Australian airports".

While waiting for my latte, I notice a couple of pilots waiting for their coffee.  One of them has his ipad out and it starts playing what sounds like the soundtrack to a movie or TV show.  He desperately tries to turn i off but fumbles and makes it louder instead.

"He can't drive his ipad - hope he's better at the controls of a plane," I quip to my barrista.

Urgent announcements to b

oard my flight are made.  i am them standing in a line that string along the whole length of the aerobridge corridor.

It takes ages to get to row 25 while people try to stow their five piece of hand luggage - why aren't the restrictions enforced?  I take my seat and am happy to discover the aircraft is equipped with individual entertainment systems.  I immediately find episode eight of "Smash" and pick up where I left off on my recent flight to Perth.

We arrive on time but it's still a brisk walk to the other terminal at Sydney airport.  The security lines here are endless and chaotic.  It seems no one has ever travelled before and no one has any idea about the need to empty pockets and not try to travel carrying aerosol cans.  I stride to the front of the queue and make it all the way out without even an explosives check!

I'm at the gate lounge for two minutes before boarding starts.  I take my seat in the Dash 8 and fall asleep immediately, waking as the wheels hit the tarmac at my destination.

My bag made it - I was worried! - and then I find the taxi queue.  Four sneering besuited men take up space with a lofty sense of entitlement.  They make derogatory comments about everyone who walks by.  I eyeball them as I take my place in yet another queue, daring them to say something to me.  My direct approach silences them until two cars marked as belonging to the local business chamber come to collect them.

I learnt from the driver of my maxi taxi that for groups of five or more people travelling in the one maxi taxi, the rate is 1.5 times the usual cabfare.  It can' be applied to fewer than 5 passengers.  Good to know.  He warns me to be careful on the Gold Coast.

I arrived at my workplace for the day and rallied.  I really needed to wake up!  Of course I did and made it to the end of another intense, interest and very challenging day.  I am the only woman in the room - in the building actually - and the dynamics are difficult.

I was happy to walk the ten minutes up the hill to my hotel at the end of the day.  There are some magnificent eucalypts along the highway and they were beautifully lit by the late afternoon sunshine.

Coffs Harbour eucalypt
(c) divacultura 2012

$30 worth of wisdom

The taxi driver's phone was ringing when I got into the back seat.  At least I think it was ringing.  It played what sounded like the soundtrack to a cartoon.  It played for about a minute.  He made no move to answer it.  For this I was grateful.  Blaring out of the speakers behind me was 1950's music, all sung tales of love gone wrong. 

The taxi driver was chatty, but muffled.  He was competing with lost love, shoo-bop-du-wop and had a big Tom Selleck moustache dampening all sound coming from his mouth.

It was 37 degrees Celsius when I arrived in Perth.  It was a nice change from the freezing conditions I'd just endured on Qantas flight 777 from Melbourne. I shared the story with the driver when he enquired about my flight.

"I asked the attendant for a blanket.  You know what he said?"

"No.  What did he say?"

"There are no blankets.  And then his offsider chimed in with the statement, 'we're all hot!'"

The driver wisely replied, "Well, they're probably hot because they're running around fetching blankets for everyone!  You'd think they'd work out what's going on if they've run out of blankets!  People are cold!  Turn up the heat!  That's all they need to do!  Then the stewards can stop running around with blankets and they wouldn't be too hot!  Everyone's happy!"

"You're right, " I said.

"Which airline?"

"Qantas."

"Perhaps it's part of their new advertising campaign."  He paused dramatically.  "Fly Qantas.  We're cool."

"Yeah, or 'Fly Qantas.  The fridge in the sky.'"

He thought that was so funny he slapped the steering wheel.

A female singer's sorrowful voice dramatically declared, "You don't love me anymore - I'll step down."

I laughed.  What was she, chariman of the board?  Prime Minister?

"That's dramatic," I said.

"It's what happens now.  With all the horses, " he replied.

What do horses have to do with it?  Maybe it was some obscure reference to the name of the group doing the backing vocals. 

"What do you mean?"

"One in three marriages end with the horses.  You could say they step down."

Was he talking about dressage?  The horses are stepping now?

"Sorry?  Horses?"

"Divorces...divorces.  You know..."

"Oh, divorces.  I thought you said 'the horses'...never mind."

I felt like I was in a scene with Peter Sellers.  They should tell them the moustache is hazardous to conversational comprehension. 

He went on:  "85 per cent of men play up, you know."

"And the other 15 per cent are lying?" I quipped.

"Well you can't be loving one woman when you're in love with another one.  She needs to step down."

"Or the man could step up."

He fell silent. 

Then: "You are a very smart woman."

Is this how he picks up women?  I wondered.

He then explained his opposition to daylight saving and his theory that it's a conspiracy of fast food chains because it's too hot to cook.

"Daylight saving doesn't change the temperature, " I pointed out.

He shook his head.  Clearly I wasn't that smart anymore.

We arrived at my hotel just in time to spare him from further disappointment about my dwindling intellect.

"Enjoy your stay while you're here," he said as he handed me my bag from the boot of the car.

When else would I enjoy it? While I'm somewhere else?

All that wisdom and entertainment for just under $30 too.

Everything's back to "normal"

Here's today's sequence of events.

Left the family farm on time and without incident.

Travelled at a snail's pace over the gravel road because it is even worse than usual after heavy rain.  Imagine driving on the surface of the moon, but with gravity.

Arrive at Tamworth airport three hours before my flight on the advice of Qantas letting me know that I could check bags in three hours before my flight.  Of course, that may be true if you're in a big city, but isn't true of an airport in a large regional centre.  Even if it is the country music capital.

Have a very pleasant, if rushed, lunch so that I could arrive back at airport no later than 1pm to check in my baggage.

Nearly get knocked out when the boot of the car crashes onto my head as I am retrieving my bag.

Advised by check-in guy that the flight was delayed by at least ten minutes.

As the minutes tick by we quickly conclude it is in fact delayed by many more minutes.

Very bumpy flight to Sydney.

Flight attendants in a snit because tea and coffee service could not be conducted because of the bumps.  I really don't care because the flight is so short it would be better just to have a communal bowl with lots of straws for us to suck our share.

Pfafffff around on tarmac transferring everyone from plane to too-small-bus to transport us to the terminal.  It must have been at least 20 metres from the plane to the terminal but they drove around in a big circle to make it seem like all the pfaffffing was worth it.

On arrival in terminal discover my leisurely hour of coffee and wandering around the airport was not to be as my connecting flight in another terminal was already boarding.  Right leg chooses this moment to have a cramp and go into spasm.

Run like a  crippled maniac over moving walk ways and up escalators, unpack the laptop, take the sunglasses off my head and remove my very dangerous bangle only to be greeted by the world's slowest security staff enquiring about aerosols and umbrellas.

Go through screening without so much as a beep.  Quickly put everything together again willing the explosives screening guy not to pick me.  (I am the most screened woman in Australia, trust me.)

Make it onto flight which is boarding right near security.  YES!

Nap during flight.

Land in Melbourne.

Turn on mobile phone when instructed and receive a text message advising that my baggage has not arrived with me.  Excellent service - at least I don't have to stand at the carousel forlornly watching the same battered backpack go round three times before I draw the conclusion that my baggage has not arrived.

Very friendly and efficient woman at the baggage services desk.  She'd been paging me, but there was no aerobridge when we arrived, so I hadn't heard a thing.  Confirm delivery address and the fact the bag will arrive in Melbourne at 7:05pm and I should have my bag by 8pm.

Another reference number for my collection!

Wait two minutes for a cab.  The driver says three things to me, I have to ask him to repeat them all.  Twice.

Another text message comes through.  This time it's Metro Trains advising that the 6:30pm train I would have caught if I took the Skybus instead of a cab, had been cancelled.  A whole hour's notice!  Wow.  That's a big improvement even if the news is that they're still cancelling trains.

Taxi stops at red light.  Taxi driver starts screaming out the window to the driver in the cab next to him.  "Two dollars.  Two dollars." He's shaking something at the other driver.  I'm trying to convey to my mother that I have landed and am (safely) in a cab.

Arrive at home nauseous.  Driver has idiosyncratic driving style involving pressing his  foot on the accelerator and immediately taking it off and hitting the brakes.  Once he hit the freeway, he handled the steering wheel like vinyl on a turn table.  He'd touch it a little to the left, take his hands off, tug his seatbelt and then tug the wheel to the right and lean forward in his seat.  He went through this sequence repeatedly during the drive.

The car was very clean and his shirt was very white, but he could not drive!  I was on the verge of asking for a bucket.

Arrive home to discover my home phone is out of order.  Spend time talking to a call centre somewhere about this.

Go out for essential groceries.

Eat dinner.

Call baggage services at 8:30pm when there is no sign of bag.  Ben tells me it's in Melbourne and the next courier is leaving the airport at 9pm.  At precisely this moment, my out of order home phone miraculously rings.  It's baggage services asking if anyone will be home to take delivery of the bag no later than 10:30pm.

I suppose bags arriving 5 and a half hours after me is not too bad.

Although they're not here yet.

I had planned to let you know that normal transmission will be resumed today, but I don't think I can be sure of anything.

The taxi queue.

Stupidly, I neglected to factor in a delayed arrival, Friday night and Christmas party season to my usual travel plans, so I found myself at the end of a taxi queue at 12:45am today.  These days when I travel to the airport, I use the very efficient and affordable Skybus and then catch a taxi home from there for a fraction of the cost of a taxi from the airport.

Usually I step straight off the bus and into a waiting cab at the rank right outside Southern Cross station.  Not last night/this morning.

I'd spent a couple of days in Perth on business and made it to the airport by the skin of my teeth (3 minutes until baggage check in closed).  The flight was delayed taking off and then was slower than usual due to a lack of wind or something, so I wasn't at the baggage carousel in Melbourne until after midnight.  I was like a zombie, my body clock not sure was going on after spending two nights on a schedule which was three hours behind my usual time zone.  This meant that I'd been awake since 5am Perth time.

Anyway, I had my return ticket for the Skybus and only needed to wait for a couple of minutes before one came along.  I managed to get a seat and twenty minutes later was walking out to the cab rank where there were about twelve people in front of me.  After fifteen minutes only one cab had pulled up. Drastic action was needed.  I started talking to people in the queue and discovered that quite a few of them had destinations within the CBD.  They were getting frustrated and the trams were still running so I gently suggested the tram as an alternative solution.  I managed to get eight (grateful) people out of the queue this way and was soon second in line.

The guy in front of me was making calls to see if he could get a friend to come and get him.  He said that I could have the next cab that arrived.

Behind me in the queue was a group of six people who looked to be in their sixties.  They had been out on the town - the men were in black tie and the women were wearing shiny things.  They were also carrying wine glasses and screaming for a maxi taxi.  They'd only been waiting for a short while when they started to hoot and wave at any passing vehicle that vaguely suggested it would be a suitable mode of transport for their merry crew.  In my exhausted state, they were too much for me.

At one point I noticed another man had joined the head of the queue and was standing there looking like he was trying to be inconspicuous.  He was plastered and was falling asleep on his feet.

"Mate, that's the wrong end of the queue," I said, choosing a friendly tone.

"What?" he replied in an equally friendly tone.  Good, he wasn't dangerous.

"You're standing at the front.  You need to go down the other end," I said pointing in the distance.  It was no longer possible to see the end of the queue.

"Nah," he said unconvincingly.

"Yes," I said firmly, smiling.

"I'd be better off walking."

"Probably."

And off he went.

Then a taxi appeared.  I pounced and called out to the queue my suburb to see if anyone wished to share the cab.  Two women were quite a way down the queue were going past my suburb.  They looked okay, so I agreed to share the cab with them.  They were very grateful, saying how lucky they were and they never would have thought to ask.

Hopefully they will ask next time and I'll be in the queue!

The driver said that it was a very busy night and he hates it when it's busy.  None of us could believe he would say such a thing.  He explained that on a night like this fights break out at unsupervised ranks and on the streets as people become more and more desperate to get a cab ride home.

Note to self, catch a cab from the airport during the Christmas party season!

Head on pillow and lights out at 2am.