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and last updated July 2nd.,1998.
Well, I am here in Atlanta, listening to the same Karl Haas program on the radio that I listen to at home.
Good to see that most Atlantians don't seem to be having a problem with MY accent!
And don't look for an electric kettle of jug in American hotel rooms...
Funny..that man's accent seems to be DISAPPEARING.....
How can that BE???
But at Chicago airport , where I spent more hours than I care to recall, they listened to
me with the kind of incredulous expressions which they will greet the first Martian visitors..
And try asking for pantyhose at that airport..I gave up in the end and wore two pink blobs of
nailpolish on the ladder, instead!
And I have decided against asking for TEA on American planes...so much quicker and safer to
order Cawfee or Carfee , depending on the state!
But you have to remember the milk and sugar doesn't come to you automatically, as
in Australia...like real men don't eat quiche, seems real Americans take their coffee neat!
You will get a coffeemaker, if the facility is so organized, (we would call it a Drip Percolator),
and a small plastic saucepan for use in the microwave....
It was days before a desperate Aussie-style craving for a cup of tea forced me to use this strange
tannin-brewing device.....
So yes, I guess I AM homesick...just a little, anyway!
And when I get home, I want a garbage disposal in the sink and an icemaker 'frig!
I told my husband I want an invisible bathplug, too, but he said we cannot afford to seriously upset our plumber!
Now, on Tuesday, that homesickness was more than just a little..
I was homesick for Australian space, and calmness and reasonably settled weather and flight plans..
American skies are crowded, over filled with irritable weather and irritable people..
To be fair, here, I need to use the bus transit system, and the train transit system before I pass final judgement,
but there is no doubt that our smaller population makes for happier flying..
To begin with, weather conditions made leaving on time impossible, not weather
conditions at Burlington, but
weather conditions between Burlington and Chicago, which had grounded the plane that would come for us and
take us back there..
Well, I don't know which plane those teams actually MET, but I found myself quite alone, in the longest, sunniest
airport concourse I have seen, towing my computer in its carry-on bag, and wondering how on earth I was going
to get to Atlanta, and what I was going to do when I reached there, since the airport phone in Burlington had
eaten my American change and declared I had the wrong number for my host in Atlanta, (I DID), and the phone
in Chicago wouldn't use non-American credit cards..
Even that chain of airport stores promising Travellers' Need' doesn't place pantyhose high on the list!
Aand the half hour expected delay turned into two and a half hours and noone KNEW any details but there were
lots of rumours...and each passenger coming upstairs to the gate lounge had another story..
And unlike Australia, where, if the airline company is delaying you, someone comes around and issues you a
meal voucher, and you get to EAT, American airlines are more interested in flying folk than
feeding folk, MUCH more interested..
But because the plane was always on its way, none of us dared leave the gatelounge to find a meal, so it was
a hungry lot of people who finally boarded the plane more than two hours late..
I gave up hope of lunch when I heard, from the toilet, one hostess offering the other a halfshare of the one Caesar
Salad she had managed to find aboard...
And I gave up hope of making the second connection when the pilot advised us, from
directly over PITTSBURGH, that we were going to take a somewhat longer time than expected to actually REACH
Chicago...but when he invited us to look at what he called a CELL to the right of the plane, and explained what
was happening inside that cloud, and underneath that cloud, noone was about to argue, especially when we were
assured United Airline would have Customer Service teams meeting the plane to ensure we all reached suitable
connecting flights!
But I figured, One step at a time and looked at the departures board and found one more flight to Atlanta
for the day, and went to THAT gatelounge, where, to cut a VERY long story short, after a lot of ID checks and
translating of my weird words, a very large black lady booked me onto THAT flight, and promised my luggage
would probably be making its way there too!
And that only gave me an expected two plus hours' wait...
Plenty of time to find unladdered pantyhose????
HA!!!
And I found out that the famous brand of coffee doesn't come with milk and sugar....
Of course, soon as Mother Nature realised where I WAS, she organized a typical
welcome- weather reception for me..same as I have received all over the world so far...
So you won't be surprised to hear that, as I waited, they started cancelling planes to and from everywhere, as weather
conditions really closed in on the East Coast..
So I wasn't even annoyed when we just got later..and later..just sort of RESIGNED..
I mean,it was a great chance to really look at Americans..hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them tramping up and
down that sunny concourse...that is, those who weren't being WHEELED by the black uniformed attendants who seem to
meet each plane...
I decided there and then NEVER to stop coloring my hair, because it seems that even the hint of grey is enough
to bring a wheelchair shoved under one's legs..
And something else that was interesting was the number of people over 50 walking
about with staff badges on..
Whereas, in Australia, they'd have been pensioned off to make way for the young, unemployed, here the
country seems to actually NEED them, even as, GULP, Flight Attendants!, since I saw several hosties
with grey hair, and the United Airlines uniforms come in several styles, some obviously cut for the more, er,
mature figure
And I saw, note this, Aussies, lots and lots of FEMALE Flight Officers, some wearing wings...
Hmm, perhaps that's what the black kid sitting next to me when we finally were aboard, and had actually taken
off, meant when he said he couldn't see any angels...
So I guess I wasn't just being flippant when I said that the angels always sIt up front with the Captain...
But I met my first Ugly American when we finally boarded..only 6 hours late, (we had to wait another hour to
take off but that is another, tedious story) when the gentleman firmly seated in the aisle seat objected
strongly to having to stand up to let me take my (unasked-for, since I hate this part of it) window-seat, and then
even more to being asked to stand and put my tennis racquet into the overhead luggage locker....
I tried to place his accent when he snarled:
So there was plenty to look at and think about while we waited for part of our flight
crew that was coming in on the late plane from Vermont, the one I had thought too late to be considered..
And as we taxied, and waited, and taxied and waited, I was interested (appalled? ) to see cars and buses and
trucks using the same 'roads' as the plane, and noone seeming quite sure which of us had the right of way....
er....DIFFERENT!!!
But by the time we got going, (they were firing us off at 30 second intervals by then),
I had made friends with the fat black kid beside me, if only to infuriate Mr AisleSeat, and as we rose
majestically, and VERY quickly, the Kid confided that the island we could see was Hawaii...
And when I gave the kid my Belgian five-franc coin, he asked if that was the money
they use in Vermont..
Hmm, Clark Kent, suggest you keep your day job..you have a worthy rival...
But it got better when were passing over a city, and I asked the kid what it was, (I was pretty sure it had to be
St Louis) and he opined Kansas, so we asked Mr AS for an opinion, and he snapped,
So I decided that perhaps geography is not an American strong suit...,which was a
real pity because we stayed low, and flew between the clouds, (shades of Charlton Heston holding back the
rolling waves of the Red Sea/Dead Sea?), and I saw so many INTERESTING things I would have liked
explained...
And when some food came in little Kentucky-Fried type boxes, we fell on it, spiced mustard in a squeese-pack
included...
For I'm sure there is definitely a meteor impact area between Chicago and Atlanta....
And why does the black soil of the Vermont area and the brown soil of the Missouri area give way so very quickly
to the red earth of Georgia?
And are those etched out fish-spine stretches of wetland the famed Bayoux, or the Everglades..or what?
By then, I'd have eaten THAT neat, just as I had to take my tea..the term, just a tiny drop of milk,
delivered in an Australian accent, being more than either of the hostesses could translate...so, just like the
flight from Belgium when they ran out of tonic by Row 15, I took the drink undiluted..
But we finally touched down, as one always hopes to do, and smoothly indeed, and I was not at all
surprised to hear that the city was about to receive a heavy, and most unexpected electrical storm..I mean,
didn't they realise who was just ARRIVING..hadn't they prepared the STORM SHUTTERS??
And there, having waited all afternoon, until 8.30pm, was Dave III, my host,
who had never met me except on ICQ, and he was holding an AQ sign, which I saw later, but I knew him
at once, though the ponytail doesn't show on his ICQ picture...
but it suited him, as did his hat...and very suitable for the weather, which was doing the cats and dogs thing by
this..
And he had parked on the very roof of the
carpark, which gave us a superb view of Atlantian lightning, and,since Dave couldn't find the hotel right away,
I was given an unscheduled tour of the city,and we talked about Blade Runner , with its neon views of
another steamy, overheated metropolis...
and I looked around at Dave's car, a true (autocuriousity) collector's item, and knew this week was going to be
VERY different from my ten days in Vermont..and we arrived laughing but wet enough that the friendly
Marriot staff issued us with immediate towels..
and before I opened my cases, I had unpacked the laptop and checked out the datapoint.....
And it was seriously hot after I'd unpacked and talked to everyone who wanted to make sure I had arrived intact,
so I decided a bath would be just right..and guess what, I found still another kind of plug, even different from
the ones in Vermont, and with no visible means of support at all, but I'm an old hand now, so it didn't faze me..I
just ran the water at this plug that couldn't be put in, and the water stayed there...getting it OUT was another
story, but I won't bore you with the details of THAT!!
In fact, I think one of the reasons American has such a small unemployment population is that there are so many
citizens at work designing bathroom fittings to bewilder the already bamboozled...
Sufficient to say that I still haven't encountered Northern Hemisphere water going down fast enough yet for me to
check out that it DOES, indeed, flow the OTHER way!!
And I have found the citizens band radio station with its classical music and great local news, and I have
answered some interesting EMail, and talked online to the folks from home and abroad,
and looked at the First Of The Month bills from my Australian ISP, (*grin*..hmm.. so husband said he would
NEVER use five hours a day, did he??), and found that washing,dries at once...and the first afternoon
Dave took me to see some shops...
Don't Americans have FEET??
(I had asked about walking the quarter mile and the staff here said I shouldn't because there are....NO SIDEWALKS..
What??Again?? Here too???
Wasn't there a Nancy Sinatra song about BOOTS..and WALKING?
Now David is younger than either of my sons, but he has two sisters and knows all about female needs and habits,
so he found an American KMart for me, and waited patiently while I worked out sizes and tried things on...
and I came away with lots of marked-down shorts and TShirts..
But all attempts to find a lipstick sealer, without which I can live but not drink coffee or kiss, were doomed to
failure, the Great American Dream system of the pharmacy in the supermarket breeding Checkout Chicks but
not badged trained Cosmetic Advisers...
And, at a rough guess, the black/white ratio of workers in the shops, especially at the checkouts is around six
to one..
And it was seriously warm and wonderful in the Atlantic sunshine, though the sky is still not as blue as in
Australia,being kept paler, we decided, by the higher humidity..and everything is green, green, green, and lush
and overgrown...
And Dave's car is so old that even if he could afford to regas the air conditioning system, he probably couldn't
find anyone who knows how to do it, so even though we didn't FEEL uncomfortably hot, when we came back to
the hotel after a GREAT American pizza ( even the PIZZA slices are bigger in America), and my first American
beer, we found our keycards must have been heated enough to have lost their magnetic charge, and the room
was locking us out so that we had to have new ones made....
But later, when Dave had gone and I was starting to work on my webpage and Email, all these knocking and
cracking noises started, and I was concerned at first, but then, like a real at-home American, I recognised it as
the icemaker going about its business and I realised that I was not alone as long as I had electricity, that all
the appliances were my friends, working away on my behalf, and that, unless the weather-god were REALLY
upset with me, for the foreseeable future at least,all was well with the world!
And we drove a really long way, around and around, and I saw so much, but, even though Dave drives that big hulk
with one hand on the wheel, just like Luc does, and the cars are all on the wrong side of the road, just as in Belgium,...
folks, after Belgium roads, I don't think I will EVER be afraid in a car again!
And David's seatbelt waits politely for me to fasten it...it does not presumpt my efforts and threaten to
decapitate me, as Rudco's belt was wont to do....something I NEVER did get used to!!
and the nice Night Manager went all giggly about my..... cute accent which immediately made me feel
like a foreigner again...
And then, when I saw what the grocery buying service had left in my 'frig, I felt even more displaced...
I mean, no gin, Evian water for Tonic Water..and a 1 GALLON bottle of milk..for FIVE DAYS??
I have never even SEEN a one gallon container of milk before!!
(It is just as well Dave III's family has inherited a very, very large family of cats, for whose feeding they have
cannily made HIM responsible...even so, a GALLON of milk????
And to those of you still asking, 'Are you still coming home early?', the answer is
'Probably not'..
Because Dave says that I am probably
going to see a Braves' baseball game, and attend a Fourth of July party...
And I haven't scheduled my time after here so severely that changes can't be made, and I seem to be thriving
on the warmer weather , and the hotel is giving me holiday rates, and they have this grocery shopping service,
which is good for entertainment at least, and a shuttle that will take you into town, even to Macy's which
Dave's car refuses to park anywhere near.. and, well, I'm kind of liking this place enough that I might just have to stay longer in Atlanta, or a similar latitude,and maybe even cut
my time in California....
Unless someone there, or elsewhere, can convince me otherwise, of course.....
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