Debbie's Journal - November 2001

Yayyy! We're back online! Never knew how much I missed the internet and my daily doses of e-mail.

Nearly every journal entry I have written starts with "I can't believe ...". Well I am going to do it again. I can't believe it's been seven months since I last updated this web site. So much has happened - how am I going to cover everything I want to say?

Travels

Over the June long weekend Mum, Dad and I went bushwalking in the Grampians National Park. Unfortunately it started raining the night we arrived and continued until the day we left; yet we still managed to fit in quite a bit of walking. The first day we:

• Did lots of short walks to the Silver Band, MacKenzie and Broken Falls
• Stalked kangaroos and wandered around the old buildings at the Zumstein Historic Site
• Visited Reids Lookout for an uninterrupted view of the clouds
  Later in the day you could even see some mountains, valleys and lakes.
• Visited Boroka Lookout for views of Halls Gap, Lake Fyan and Lake Belfield

The second day Dad and I walked to Clematis Falls, Chatauqua Peak and Bullarch Glen, a more "rugged" track with fewer tourists.

I had forgotten how much I miss been out in the bush; watching wildlife, absorbing the atmosphere, having time to slow down and relax. When we were kids bushwalking was such a major part of our school holidays and weekends. I don't think we appreciated the experience as much then as we would now.

Tony was in the United States. On this trip he was offered a role in Sharinga that required us to move to the States. Over the next three months he spent about 50 percent of his time in the States - it felt like more. He managed fleeting visits to Melbourne for our anniversary, birthdays and to help with our relocation. In the last couple of weeks we visited our favourite restaurants - although the owners seemed more concerned with the loss in business rather than our company.

Tony had booked two weeks of leave for Sydney but it was cancelled. On our last weekend in Melbourne he flew up to Sydney on the Friday night to spend Saturday with his parents. Sunday we had yum cha and visited the "Renoir to Picasso" exhibition before I dropped him off at the airport on Monday morning.

I spent that last weekend in Melbourne being a tourist - Saturday brunch in the Block Arcade, Monday taking photos from the Rialto Tower and catching up with one last friend over coffee.

My two weeks in Sydney were a whirlwind of business meetings, lunches, coffees, dinners and phone calls. In Melbourne we managed to spread those lunches and coffees out over a longer period!

Thank you everyone for sparing the time and for all the warm wishes and messages of good luck.

In two weeks I am jetting off for Singapore and Nepal. In Singapore I am staying with a uni friend and also hoping to catch up with a friend from my Finance days in IBMA. Looking forward to Nepal and meeting up with Darren and Gina. It's been 18 months since I last saw them and it will probably be just as long before I see them again.

Where are we living?

We are renting a 60-year old house in Burlingame, a city about 10-15 minutes drive from San Bruno where Tony works. In Australia we would refer to Burlingame and San Bruno as outer suburbs of San Francisco. Here, because of their size, they are cities.

To see where Burlingame and San Bruno are located, click on the "San Francisco" bookmark in this map of the Bay Area.

(New links for Burlingame and San Bruno - Deb 2012)

We live just off the El Camino Real, the old highway. The El Camino Real follows the route used by the Spanish missionaries to travel between the Californian missions.

We have travelled to the airport using two alternative routes. The first involved following the El Camino Real to San Bruno and then joining the 101. This took about 20 minutes. The second route, discovered when Tony forgot his suit coat for a New York business trip and we had to come back for it, took about 10 minutes. We do get airport noise but the planes are so high it sounds more like distant thunder. And if the NW-SE runways are in use we don't hear anything.

A 30 minute walk takes us into Millbrae where there are four dim sum (yum cha) restaurants. These are the only dim sum restaurants that we know of that are located outside of San Francisco. We are in walking distance of three of them! The problem is that every other Chinese family on the Peninsula knows about them and the queues are out the door.

Tony and I had dim sum once at the Fook Yuen, a very familiar name for those who live or work around Chatswood on Sydney's North Shore. The Fook Yuen is part of a chain that has restaurants in the USA, Hong Kong, Singapore and ... Australia.

A 20 minute walk in the other direction takes us to Broadway, one of two main shopping strips or downtown areas in Burlingame. In particular, there is:

• The Broadway railway station where we can catch a train to either San Francisco or San Jose
• A Thai restaurant that we have yet to try
• A health store that sells hommous and babaganoush
  

  Looks like if we want Turkish I'm going to have to learn to make pide and tzatziki or cacik dip.

Roughing it

We lived in the house for one and a half weeks before our furniture arrived and then had to wait another two weeks for our new bed.

Did you know:

• Polystyrene packaging and boxes make good tables and nightstands?
  

  We are still using some boxes and wooden planks for a shoe rack.

• Box flaps make good placemats for those hot TV dinners?
• TV dinners in America do not require any crockery?
  

  Just heat and eat.

• Dishwashers make good ironing boards?
  

  Just place a stack of newspapers on the dishwasher and cover with a towel - a definite improvement to a towel on the ground.

Major appliances such as the refrigerator, washing machine and dryer were included in the rent. This is standard for most rental properties in America. Our rent also includes a dishwasher, central heating, outdoor furniture, portable barbecue, gardener, vacuum cleaner and water rates.

To start we bought some small appliances like the microwave and iron, a set of linen and towels, two mugs and two bowls. The only essential tools I bought was a hammer, nails and boards to cover a Mitzi-sized hole in the gate.

We bought an air mattress to use until our bed arrived. The first two nights were spent on the ground because the first mattress had a faulty valve. We slept well on the first night our bed arrived although Tony was disappointed that Astra and I no longer sank or bounced up when he moved.

Apologies for those that truly "rough it" but this is "roughing it" for Tony and me - at least until I get to Nepal.

"Pet-scapades"

Picking up the pets - what a drama!

Mitzi and Astra took the same flight that the Sharingans take - Ansett flight from Melbourne to Sydney and then a United Airlines flight from Sydney to San Francisco. The plane arrives around 7:30am.

We were running late. We didn't know:

• Where the freight office was but assumed we'd able to find out at the International Terminal
• We only lived 10 minutes drive from the airport

There was no-one at the International Terminal or the Information desk. The baggage office was closed and the information kiosk provided information on people facilities, not animals. A United Airlines employee at the check-in counters suggested we try the baggage office in the Domestic Terminal. The lady there did not have a clue where the pets would be, however, her work colleague suggested that they were probably at the cargo office - "big building near the employee parking, it's not far, you could walk it".

By now it was 8:30-9:00am so we drove. Walk it? Possibly if you are not carrying two animals. The employee parking and United Airlines building were about 2-3km north of the airport and because I missed the turnoff we saw a lot more of the airport area than expected. Thought we better turn around when it looked like we were headed into a restricted zone - didn't want to end up on the runway!

We discovered that the parking area across from the United Airlines building had no public parking. Obviously this was not the cargo office. We had seen a smaller UA building back towards the airport so we headed for that.

Success! It was the cargo office and yes, they knew about the pets and both had arrived safely. Before we could take them we just needed to get Customs to sign the arrival documents. "Do you know where Customs is? It's not very far - just up the road".

Half an hour later, we finally had our pets. Mitzi was so excited she started doing a dance in her cage, eager to go for a walk. Astra meowed pitifully and then complained constantly all the way home.

Both of them loved the garden. Mitzi darted around the yard, behind bushes, around trees, nose to the ground or sniffing the air. We tried to keep Astra inside for 24 hours but she pushed against one of the open windows and squeezed out.

A day or two later, Astra came running up to me meowing. She had seen a strange creature in the yard - a squirrel. As soon as Mitzi saw the squirrel she chased it back and forth across the yard before it headed up a tree.

Astra is used to the squirrels now and sometimes chases them. I once caught Mitzi and Astra sitting by the glass door, heads close together, looking intently out into the garden. I opened the glass door and Mitzi pushed the screen door open and raced up the back to chase a squirrel. Astra ran after her.

Another time, Astra pretended to stalk a squirrel from the safety of her plant tub. Mitzi was lying at my feet. She opened an eye, raised her head and then promptly went back to sleep.

Mitzi has escaped twice, both attempts on the one day. There is a hole in the gate created by the landlord's dog. Tony placed a couple of pot plants in front of the hole as a temporary measure until our tools arrived. However, we had to add another pot to the collection when we caught Mitzi trying to move one of the pots out of the way.

On the other side of the house there are two gates. We thought that the gaps under the gates were too small for Mitzi. However, the land slopes towards the street and towards the wall of the house so she escaped by squeezing under the gate. We have added a row of bricks to block the gap, not on Mitzi's side because she is adept at pushing bricks aside.

The second time she pushed open the front screen door while I was setting up the bricks.

Nice way to meet the neighbours. School had just ended, parents were picking up their kids, Mitzi was running all over the road and I was being greeted with "You better catch your dog!", "You shouldn't let your dog out", "Is that your dog?"

Halloween

Burlingame is a family area so there were lots of Halloween decorations displayed - gravestones, spider webs, ghosts, jack-o-lanterns, bats, just to name a few. A personal favourite is the witch who has crashed into a tree - broomstick jutting out behind, arms and legs wrapped around the tree.

To prepare for Halloween I filled a big bowl with wrapped candy. By the end of the night half the candy was gone. We had the traditional ghosts and ghouls, a penguin (next door's little boy on his first Halloween), debutantes and a judo expert (was that a costume or sport's gear?).

Meanwhile, a group of Sharingans headed out to the Castro District in San Francisco to join thousands of people at the biggest Halloween street party.

After September 11

The world changed after September 11. Before September 11 I was looking forward to coming to the States and the opportunities available. Although Tony had arrived the day before he was relatively safe on the West coast. Our more immediate concern was for our friends in New York, and for my brother and his wife travelling through the Middle East. Thankfully, our family and friends are safe.

I think this is the hardest trip I've had to take; there were fears about:

• What would happen if war broke out?
• What would happen in America, seemingly the focus of the attacks?
• Would we be stuck here away from family and friends? Australia seems so far.

In hindsight, it was the safest time to fly, if not the most nerve-wracking. At Sydney airport I got caught up in a random bag check at check-in, all my cabin luggage was searched and my passport and ticket verified before I could enter the lounge. I had three seats to myself on the plane so I was able to stretch out and sleep, and then sit at the window as we landed in Los Angeles.

Security was less impressive at Los Angeles - only my ticket and passport were verified before I entered the lounge. Because of cancellations, my original San Francisco flight had been cancelled. I had to take a later flight, which was the connecting flight for five other international flights.

On the surface, nothing has changed - people still go about the routine of everyday life. There are small things like people not going to the post office for fear of catching anthrax. However, if we live our livesin constant paranoia we'll never experience life. Following is an excerpt from an editorial in a local magazine that I would like to share. Although speaking of America and Americans, I believe it is equally relevant to her allies:

“Thank you Mr Terrorist

 ... we had become isolated - not from the world, but from one

 another. We had become a whining, disgruntled people ...

 obsessed with our own personal causes. ... We realise how

 lucky we are to be living in a free and open society. ...

 There is a sense of commonality, of union, of brother hood. ...

 In your reign of terror you awakened our soul.

 ... You have helped us focus on the precious gift of life. ...”

 Elsie Floriani

 Gentry Magazine

 November 2001

This site will probably be updated after Christmas, hopefully with photos of Singapore and Nepal.

From Tony and me, have a safe and happy Christmas and enjoy the holiday period!

Until next time, take care.