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and last updated July 7th.,1998.
Well, I am here in Atlanta, having celebrated America's birthday here.....
They started letting off fireworks here long before sundown on the 3rd, and the noise seemed
to go on all night.....then more of the same next evening..big crowds downtown and seeming to
be enjoying themselves!
That makes one Queen's Birthday, and one nation's birthday in one unplanned holiday...
Not bad for impromptu timing??
Even the traffic police seemed rather jovial...
Though I don't think Dave was REAL pleased when his 'scenic tour' was held up so much by crowds and
traffic jams. I mean, I was loving looking at Atlanta's nightlife, but HE was trying to unload me
so he could get back to what was left of HIS nightlife!!
Was a magic night, Dave..but, next time round , I PROMISE, I am going to DRIVE in this country!
My family will be surprised to find that Dave and Atlanta managed to achieve something even London didn't...
When Dave said he thought we should take Marta when we went into the city centre, I figured Marta was his sister
and wondered why she hadn't shown up when he came to collect me. And even when he had parked the car and guided me through the station,
the penny still didn't really drop...
But I have actually been on PUBLIC TRANSPORT here, and have a MARTA token in my purse to prove it!
So Dave showed me his city downtown, and we went through the Underground, where I bought postcards and some
yummy Georgian spreads and sauces, and then he took me through the Coca Cola Museum, which, for Dave whose
forefather designed the Coke logo, is a part of his family heritage...
I hadn't realised Coke started in Atlanta, and in a pharmacy at that, when the pharmacist made a mistake in his dispensing.....
Hmmm!
Though David is younger than either of my sons, his two sisters have trained him well,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,some of which I had to take back because they
were too big....apparently SOMETHING is getting smaller in America!!
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 when I DID walk to Phipps Plaza, and consulted several cosmetic advisers, they, too, professed a total
ignorance of anything used to seal lipstick..(though I DID find out there is an Australian wine-tasting at the
winebar there on Wednesday....)
And, strangest of all to an Australian, in this land of Equal Opportunity, they have MEN working as cosmetic
advisers...especially at some of the exclusive agency counters..!!
And, at a rough guess, the black/white ratio of workers in the shops, especially at the checkouts is around six
or eight to one..
So I had to wait until I took the hotel shuttle over to Lenox Plaza before the elusive lipstick-sealer materialized.
And even then, I started out with an under-lipstick sealer from the Chanel collection, before the Estee Lauder girl
told me she was pretty sure the Body Shop keeps a sealer.....and they do...so I bought two, just to make sure...
(So kisses and coffee are back on the menu, folks!)
And then, because I was finally shopping without MEN, I tried on at least a thousand bathing suits in Rich's
and actually bought one...eggplant purple with gold trim!
and then, to counter the depression that accompanies prolonged viewing of oneself in an allways/allover mirror,
I had a pizza and salad lunch before hitting Macy's, where the grandmother in me took over and bought a pink
thingy for the expected sixth grandchild, who is rapidly acquiring an international wardrobe as I travel.
About makeup, it seems some people have quite the wrong idea about me...
A friend from Pennsylvania says he doesn't want to meet me here in America, (and will wait for me to invite him
to Australia), because he wants to see me without makeup and being natural in my home environment...
Hmm...think some of my other friends should tell him how they have helped me send my formal Australian
clothes home, and supervised the buying of casual holiday gear...
how they have seen me go straight from the swimming pool and out to dinner having borrowed only a lipstick...
and that my hair works just fine in the American climate with just a comb between swims..
In fact, I am calling on all my friends who have seen me without makeup in the last six weeks to EMail this
much-mistaken-male and advise him of his misconception
that I am some kind of painted dolly-bird, with everything artificial!
Sorry, W.G., not a facelift scar in sight, and not a lot of makeup, either, as those American friends with the courage
to initiate face-to-face contact will attest.....
And..hey!.... THEY are the ones who will get the Aussie invitations!!
And it is seriously warm here, 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 we have driven a really long way, around and around, and I have seen 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 Belgian 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 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....
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!!
And for 8 small washed new potatoes, read, 6 huge saratogas wearing half the farmyard!
And it turns out all Dave's family's cats are lactose-intolerant, which means I have had to learn to drink skim milk
as a thirst-quencher..and, you know what? American skim milk tastes GREAT!
In fact, I felt very American with my cookies and milk at bedtime!!
Or, rather, milk and part of cookie.....EVERYTHING is bigger in America!!
But I wasn't feeling very American last Tuesday....in fact I was one very homesick Australian!
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!
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..
And 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...
For example, I'm sure there is definitely a meteor impact area between Chicago and Atlanta....
Is that big crater where they find the dinosaur eggs?
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?
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 I have found the citizens band radio station with its classical music and great local news,
and talked online to the folks from home and abroad, and looked for mail from others not yet in touch
and kept up with my washing, but not with my reading...(sorry, folks waiting for a new book review!) but
when I asked about walking to the nearest shopping plaza, the staff here said I shouldn't because there are
....NO SIDEWALKS..
Don't Americans have FEET??
What??Again?? Here too???
Wasn't there a Nancy Sinatra song about BOOTS..and WALKING?
But it appears the plight of the American pedestrian is gradually making its presence
felt..
From Vermont, Rudco tell me that a question has been asked in a Progress Association meeting about the
difficulty (tourist) pedestrians have had accessing Taft Corner shopping....
and the local paper here reports a planned community where, shades of Australia, faciilities will be so grouped
that citizens can utilize basic commercial facilities without the need for a car..
Actually, Yanks, you'd be surprised how much more folks will buy if they don't have to carry the shopping bag
five miles home without sidewalks!!
And to those of you still asking, 'Are you still coming home early?', the
answer is 'Probably not'..
And I haven't scheduled my time so severely that changes can't be made, and I seem to be thriving
on the warmer weather , (and I have some Gordons Gin, now, and some tonic),so I think I might
have to stay longer in Atlanta, or a similar latitude,and maybe even cut my time in California....
Some friends I was trying to contact have surfaced, which is nice...but seriously bad timing because I have
rebooked my flight to LA and arranged to vacate this room on Friday,knowing they have no other vacancies....
BUT airline reservations departments exist to SERVE, and there is always the Ritz-Carlton Marriot in an
emergency! (where Dave's sister is the online booking manager!
Of course, I wouldn't have a kitchen there,and couldn't make that Aussie meal, but friends also exist to take
one out to DINNER!
(Pity I sent their presents back home to save weight, thinking they were playing Shrinking Violet!)
Unless someone there, or elsewhere, can convince me otherwise, of course.....
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