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I thought I’d transcribe my diary entry from today, because I probably would have just posted this had I had internet access at the time. Anyway, you should know by now that Tim and I are back in Australia, safe and sound.

Tim and I are in the Japan Airlines “Sakura Lounge” at San Francisco airport (SFO) while we wait for our flight to board. It’s around 8 PM now, and our plane starts boarding at 9:40PM I think.

I have to note down before I forget – Americans call their main meals “entrees” and their entrees “appetizers”. I wonder if they get confused when they come to Australia… It’s not like it would be that difficult to figure it out.

When we went through security my bag got searched because I forgot to take my swiss army knife out. The lady seemed surprised when I declined her suggestion that I could go back out to the entrance area and organise to send it to myself at home. I said, “I don’t need it that badly.” Someone is going to be stoked with their new toy. It was a genuine Swiss Army Knife. Oh well. I was just sick of waiting to get through the gates. We had been waiting at the airport since around 3:00PM to check in, which we couldn’t do until 6:45PM. 

We got here so early because there wasn’t much else to do, hanging around in the city. We went to Union Square and I laid in the grass under a tree and Tim sat on the verge and couldn’t get comfortable. I was very comfortable. It’s so nice laying on the grass on a coolish day with just enough sunshine to keep you warm. You close your eyes and experience the sounds and smells of the city. San Francisco sounds like wind blowing through leaves, fire engine sirens, cable car bells and cables humming, and quiet conversations. San Francisco smells like green grass, dirt, exhaust and cigarettes (at Union Square, anyway). 

It’s not entirely unpleasant, the smell of the grass, dirt and sunshine mostly overpowers the other smells, and the strong gusts of wind blow everything away anyway. Things feel so fresh when there’s a cold, gusty wind blowing. San Francisco felt that way a lot of the time. 

Sometimes you will walk past a grate in the road and it will smell of sewage. In the evenings and when it is really cold, you can see the smell that rises from those grates like a malodorous fog.

23rd May 2008 

Back on Australian soil. Tim and I are sitting in the Qantas Club Lounge at Sydney Airport, waiting for our flight to Brisbane.

Tim is eating toast and other things on offer at the buffet table. I had some toasted Turkish Bread, which was delicious, and some white goop that I thought was yoghurt but now I think it was actually cottage cheese. It tasted horrible. I don’t really understand why they would put a big bowl of cottage cheese next to the muesli and fruit salad. That’s why I thought it was just natural set yoghurt. I also had some pineapple pieces that I picked out of the fruit salad, and they were okay. 

The “granola” that was part of the continental breakfast on the plane was crunchy and yum, but a little too sweet. It tasted sort of like Crunchola, which I used to get all the time and it was really good, but after a while it made me feel sick because I liked it too much. There can be too much of a good thing. The name “Crunchola” makes more sense to me now that I am aware of the existence of granola, and what it is. I hadn’t made the connection before, not having knowledge of what granola actually was. 

I am not able to eat a hot breakfast on a plane since Lauren and I flew to London on Royal Browneye and I ate some of the hot breakfast but I felt sick afterwards and still now when I think about it, it makes me feel a little queasy. 

In some of the hotels we stayed at in the US, at the breakfast buffet they had covered, metal trays with what looked like thin meat patties in one tray, and puffy yellow circular shapes in another. Tim says the yellow things were eggs, but I can’t make the connection between those uniform, pale yellow circles, and what you get when you crack open an egg. 

I forgot to describe the sickening Royal Browneye breakfast… it had a gelatinous, quivering mound of dimpled yellow stuff that was supposed to be scrambled eggs, a pale orange, soft tomato half, and a pink shiny sausage that looked like they had made it by cutting off some small animal’s dick, peeling the skin off and then boiling it. 

GROSS!!!

More later – we are heading to the gate…

…….

I just used my ATM card again for the first time in a couple of weeks. I had tried using it while we were overseas, but it let me get all the way to choosing an amount to withdraw and then told me it didn’t have authorisation to process my request. I didn’t check beforehand if my Suncorp card could be used overseas, it just seems like such a basic feature. Just another way Suncorp sucks I guess. I mean, seriously, get with the program Suncorp. Every other bank has had the whole “cirrus” or whatever symbol since forever. Since I got my first ATM card from Commonwealth Bank. God. Suncorp’s like that electronic store in Yamba that stocks record players but not MP3 players. Suncorp, you SUCK! I must remember to transfer all my banking business to ANZ. I was going to transfer everything to St. George, but now it looks like they are going to be taken over by Westpac. I feel a bit sad about that, St. George has always been my favourite bank, and they’re merging with one of my least favourite banks. I have little to no faith in Westpac’s customer service capabilities, not to mention that they’ve never impressed me with their product portfolio. Suck suck suck.

Apparently the woman at immigration here in Sydney didn’t stamp our passports to indicate re-entry to Australia. So I guess according to our passports, we’re still in America. 

It’s going to take me a while to get used to walking on the left side of footpaths, escalators etc. If I don’t concentrate on it, I find myself gradually drifting to the right-hand side. I don’t think Tim will have this problem, because he never really made a huge effort to walk on the right-hand side anyway. I would hold his hand and slowly drag him over to the right. He said, “Why does it matter?” And I said, “Because you’re messing with the natural order of things and confusing people.” I guess it doesn’t matter that much, and I’m not sure that Americans would make a similar effort to change sides were they to visit Australia.

What makes that whole exchange between Tim and I even stranger is that when we first arrived, Tim was the one reminding me to move over when we were on escalators. It didn’t seem like anyone was all that worried about rushing past us on the escalators anyway – not like in Australia. If you leave a gap, you can be pretty certain there’s going to be someone that the escalators just aren’t going fast enough for. In America, people seemed content to wait, and I guess they’re better shoppers in that sense because they don’t have to hurry through everything.

The boat that Tim and I went out on in San Francisco for the tour of the Bay was called “Golden Bear”. I like California’s flag – it has a picture of a bear and a star. The bear looks like he doesn’t realise he’s on a flag. 

The froghurt in America tastes like regular vanilla soft-serve ice cream. I didn’t like it because I don’t like vanilla ice cream. To me, vanilla always seemed like a crap flavour. It’s so boring and it just tastes like you’ve taken the base product and added loads of sugar. 

Tim was reading over my shoulder and shook his head at my opinion on vanilla. I knew he wouldn’t agree – he likes vanilla. He’s not very adventurous though. He said I was speaking through my ass, but it’s just an opinion, so with his reasoning everyone is constantly speaking through their ass, and they would make special microphones that go down the back of peoples’ pants.